We're Too Far From the Start
by Besosybrazos
Summary: AU of BTR that then turns into canon. Carlos is a hooker, James deals drugs, Logan cooks meth, and Kendall really needs to find some roommates before he's kicked out of his apartment. Carlos/James, Kendall/Carlos, Logan/Camille. Warning for noncon.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own BTR, sadly, if I did it would not be on Nick**

**Pairings: Eventual Carlos/James, possibly Kendall/Carlos and Logan/Carlos. I'm not sure.**

**Summary:An AU of BTR that sort of blends in with canon. Carlos is a hooker, James sells drugs, Logan cooks meth, and Kendall needs to find three roommates before he's evicted from his apartment because he can't pay the rent. When the four unlikely friends hear about a chance to audition for a boy band, they jump at the chance to make better lives for themselves.**

**Warnings: Language, sex, prostitution, probable drug use. It's a very grown up version of BTR people.**

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We're Too Far From the Start

The dreaded pink notice of impending eviction is stapled to his door when Kendall opens it in the morning, after he's sure the landlord has gone. Reality hits him like a truck, only it smashes dreams instead of bones.

Shit.

He has a week to come up with almost a thousand dollars. If he even somehow manages to find a job the most he stands to make is a couple hundred bucks at best. There's no way he can make enough. He has to come up with a plan to pay off the rent or he's going to be sleeping on the sidewalk in seven days, out in the Minneapolis summer heat.

He has an idea.

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The flyers are ugly ass cheap things. He couldn't waste what little money he had left on getting nice ones printed out. He made do with a pack of magic markers and scratch paper from the bottom of the recycling bin. It's not professional, yeah, but whoever is desperate enough to take him up on his offer isn't going to be expecting lamination and neat, bold text. They look okay, he's spelled everything right, the paper isn't stained. They'll do.

He doesn't know what to look for. There aren't neon signs that come over people's heads announce if they're looking for a place to live. It'd be great if there were, but there aren't, because the universe isn't that kind.

"Hey." He goes up to the first guy to come around the corner. He's got a gray hoodies on, with the hood up to cover most of his face, and ridiculously large, expensive sunglasses that match his black leather boots. Kendall thinks he can see a purple bandana under the dude's long bangs, which is weird, but beggars can't be choosers. "You thinking about moving?"

"Not really." The guy tries to go past him, Kendall doesn't let him, he widens his plants his feet firmly on the ground and won't budge, makes sure to move into his way.

"Well, if you change your mind or you know someone who is, take a look at this." He folds his flyer into a neat square and gives it to him, relieved to see it shoved into the back pocket of the navy blue skinny jeans rather than tossed into the garbage.

One down; only four dozen more flyers to go.

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The next guy has a shifty look about him. His eyes are water bright, red rimmed, and he smells strongly of cleaning chemicals and has the unmistakable odor of _burning_ about him. He could be a smoker or a janitor, or something else entirely, but he looks like he could use a place to live.

"Are you looking for an apartment?"

"Maybe." The guy sniffles, rubs a hand through his brown hair, and a little piece of ash flutters out. Weird. "Are you looking for someone to lease your place to?"

"No, I'm looking for a roommate or two."

"I don't know." He shakes his head, but he's the first interested person Kendall's seen all day. He needs his money.

"Utilities are included in the rent, food too."

"How much?" He has him; he might keep his apartment yet.

"I dunno, like, three hundred a month?" It's reasonable, pretty cheap for electricity and water included.

"Deal." The little dude slaps a wad of cash into his hand. That's kind of suspicious, definitely suspicious, but who is he to judge? "That's six hundred; I'm paying for two months in advance."

"Cool, here's the address." He gives out his second flyer, relief flooding his blood, settling his nerves and calming the erratic beating of his heart.

"I'm Logan; I'll be back with my stuff at the end of the week."

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The sun has already sunk halfway down in the sky. The day is at its longest hour, the summer heat and sun shorten his shadow to almost nothing. He's about to take a break for lunch, pay off what he can with his landlord, and hope for an extension of no one else comes through. Six hundred is good; six hundred is enough to maybe get him another week or two before he's out.

He's trying to peek around the side of the building, to see if anyone is coming, when he's smashed into from behind. His flyers scatter, drifting through the air, landing on the sidewalk delicate as butterflies, spread out in every direction.

"Dude!" His nose feels like it might start to bleed any second and his hands sting with cuts that produce big, fat droplets of blood that sit on the surface of the wounds and threaten to fall but don't. "Watch where you're going!"

"Uh." The guy who hit him is small, wearing black jeans that are too tight for anyone to be wearing, guy or girl. He can practically see his dick in his pocket. His shirt's no better, tight in the chest and torso, without sleeves. He's dressed pretty gay, really, terribly gay, like he's on his way to live on a rainbow. Kendall doesn't care if he's gay, dudes love who they love and fuck who they fuck, he isn't going to knock on something that's just another aspect of human sexuality. Just 'cause he doesn't want to try it himself doesn't mean it's wrong.

"Shit, man." He blows on the cuts to alleviate the sting, wincing. "What the fuck?"

"No hablo inglés." The guy says it rushed, panicked. He obviously understands.

"No, I'm not mad. You just surprised me and scraped me up a bit."

"Sorry. I have somewhere to be." He looks busy, bouncing on foot to foot, and he smells very sweet. He's wearing perfume like a girl. He smells like apples and lilacs, but manlier too. Kendall can't explain it; it's not bad, just _different_. It must be a gay thing.

"Hold up, if you're in the market for a new apartment, I need some roommates."

"Thanks!" He takes the paper, grinning, stuffs it into the side pocket of his impossibly tight jeans.

Kendall watches him sprint away and feels more than a little hopeful.

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**IDK yet if I'm going to continue. I have more in mind, let me know if anyone is interested in reading more. 3**

**Besos y brazos  
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	2. Chapter 2

**I wasn't gonna post this yet, but I'm going out of town in a few days, and I won't have internet for awhile, and there's another chapter I want to post before I go, and then I guess once I get back I'll decide if this is something I'm going to continue. Big thanks to everyone who has reviewed and been encouraging, you guys are fantastic. I really do like writing this story, it's nice to know there are people enjoying it.**

**Warning, there's some sex here and foul language/light homophobia.****  
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There are days like this, when his spit is sour with the taste of stale latex and he has sweat that isn't his dribbling onto his naked back, that Carlos really hates his whole pinche vida.

"Fuck, yeah, yeah, you like that?"

He shifts, spreads his thighs wider, balances on his knees. The sheets have the musty stink of cheap soap and body odor to them; a hundred thousand bodies in this bed before him. He doesn't like to think about all the sweat and come that is in the sheets.

"Oh God, yes." He moans, faking appreciation, pressing his overheated forehead into the cool skin on his forearm. Carlos used to love all his parts in school plays, but this here? This is his finest performance. "You're so _good_." Really, the guy is pretty terrible, fumbling about, sweaty and greedy half-pushes that aren't deep enough for true penetration. He fucks shallow, like he doesn't know what he's doing, and God, Carlos feels bad for this poor dude's wife. He can only hope the john works his energy out on prostitutes before he goes home and forces his unfortunate, innocent wife to endure this torture for free.

"You fucking slut." Technically he isn't a slut. Sluts give willingly; he negotiates until he's found a decent price. He's a different kind of entrepreneur, specializing in illegal trade. He took a business and economics class at community college before he had to drop out so he knows life is all about supply in demand. If he's in demand, people gotta pay up before he'll supply. It's simple business strategy. He thinks he could have passed the class if he'd been allowed to finish the semester. "Tell me you want it, say it in Spanish."

"Uhn." He makes a little panting noise low in his throat, squeezes his muscles. "Chingame." He could say almost anything he wants in Spanish, he doubts the guy'll know the difference, but he never knows for sure. He tried that once, told one man to go fuck a duck. He didn't get paid that night.

There's nothing worse than when a john comes. This guy is the type who likes to see his work, pulls out and orgasms on his lower back. Jizz splatters hot on his skin, thickens to a slow, lazy drip that slops off him in a club when he wipes it off with the corner of the sheets. It's really fucking gross, no matter how many times he's seen it or had it splashed across his face, his back, the insides of his thighs. "That was great." Everyone says you have to lie if you want to get the most cash, the highest tip. Carlos lies because he likes to see dudes walk away with a smile. If he's gotta be less than happy about this whole thing, it doesn't mean they have to be. "You come back anytime." Smiling afterwards makes it easier, brightens his day. He bounces back pretty quickly. His mamá calls him her ray of sunshine, says that he can cheer up the world with a grin. "Call this number if you get lonely, just ask for Chulo." He used to get called papi chulo all the time, especially by his mamá, who would croon it to him while she pinched his cheeks and fixed his hair. He's a fucking _pretty _boy and that's why he's in this whole mess to begin with.

It's too hot outside to want to take a real shower; the heat is stifling even in the room, even with the slightly functioning air conditioner working at full blast. The heat leaves him feeling damp and sticky, wets the nape of his neck, gives him a devastated, fucked out sheen that isn't very appealing. Guys can't pull off looking sweaty, not like girls can. He rinses off with water that's almost cold, scrubs with the hard, yellow bar of soap down between his legs, the one place that never really feels clean. Hygiene is important and he's heard that cleaning regularly helps keep you from getting STD's.

The sun is setting on the Minneapolis skyline when he leaves the motel and the sky is a washed out pink and orange that bleeds into purple and blue. He loves watching things like this, gets a simple pleasure from them. He's not very hard to make happy; a hug from his parents, ice cream on a warm day, a smile from a pretty girl, a lick from a puppy, that's all he needs. He's not complicated; it's what he likes best about himself. He's only ever Carlos, whole and imperfect, simple and goofy and silly and adorable Carlos.

"Mira, check out the pretty, pretty mariposa over here." He doesn't understand why people always have to bother him. He's just trying to make enough money to bring his family to Minnesota. The coyote says it's five thousand dollars per person, plus the cost of food and gas and shelter along the way. On his worst days, when he doesn't think he'll ever feel happy again, and his chest is carved out and hollow, he wonders how he's ever going to come up with that much money.

"Leave me alone." The guy isn't much taller than he is, only by about an inch, but he looks tough, and the blue of his tattoos stands out on the dark skin of his arm. Carlos can take him in a fight if he has to, he's not afraid. "Chale, no me jodas."

"Fucking maricón." He's _not_; he just looks like one in his tight jeans and tight, sleeveless shirt. He doesn't dress like this because he wants to, he doesn't have a choice. The insult burns him, somewhere down deep, in a place he doesn't know, a dark, horrible pit that sadness lives in, bubbles and grows alive.

"Hijo de gran puta." Shit, that only gets him pissed, but Carlos can laugh at the angry spark in the guy's brown eyes, the smug warmness of pride blooming in his belly. He runs then, before the dude can get too upset, laughing to himself as he darts down the street, giddy with fleeting excitement, the prospect of being chased. No one follows him, they never do, so he slows to a walk and takes out the square of paper that is poking painfully into his hip. He didn't give it much thought when he got it, happy to talk to someone who wasn't paying for his company. His abuelito always said that making friends with strangers is what makes life interesting.

He's never thought about getting roommates before. After his family got deported back to Mexico he got used to living on his own. He has an apartment he's rarely ever in, most of his nights he spends outside or in motel rooms, on his back or on his knees. He could always use some new friends, he doesn't have too many of them anymore. Not unless he counts his regulars, which he doesn't. Real friends would want to go with him to the movies or chase pigeons in the park. A cheaper apartment could help him save up his money faster and he'd have someone to talk to in the mornings and keep him company late at night.

"Good evening Mrs. Wilson." Mrs. Wilson is asleep at her desk, snoring into the crook of her arm. He feels sort of bad leaving like this. His lease isn't up for another three weeks and Mrs. Wilson's always been so nice to him, offering him fresh baked cookies on his way past her office in the afternoons.

"What can I do for you Carlos?" Mrs. Wilsons asks, rubbing at her eyes with the backs of her hands.

"Nothing, I'm moving out, I'll be gone in a few days, as soon as I can pack up all my stuff."

"Did you finally find a nice girl to settle down and move in with?" Mrs. Wilson smiles at him, reaches through the little window in the glass and pets his hair.

He laughs louder than he meant to, loud enough to hurt.

"Not yet."

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**Reviews feed my soul. haha**


	3. Chapter 3

**Lol, I really wasn't going to post this so soon, I was going to finish it tomorrow, but MinuteCloser2Falling wrote me such lovely reviews that IDK, I guess I was ~inspired~ haha. Thanks for that, darling. ;)**

**As always, there's adult language, and for this chapter, at least, there is some het. Lol, I think Logan/Camille is really cute, okay? I'm a multishipper, yo, I love to cram fics full of pairings. **

**To the rest of you who have reviewed, thanks, it's nice to know when something you're writing is appreciated. **

**Besos y brazos  
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The smoke and fumes have cleared from the kitchen and the air is safe enough to breathe if he wanted to risk it. He knows the probability of it all, however, and he keeps his mask secure over his nose, and his goggles firmly on. The air has the bitter, biting burn of chemicals to it, a residue that would sear his throat and cling to his lungs, coat the outer surface of his alveoli, sink deep into the delicate, vulnerable tissue and slowly poison it. He's read enough on the subject to be wary of breathing anywhere near where he cooks up the meth. Every single chemical he's boiling up and purifying are known carcinogens. Long term exposure will kill his lungs and they'll grow heavy with tumors and slowly kill him, fill thick with fluid and deteriorate as he tries to draw in gasping, spasming breaths that make him cough and choke on each exhale.

"You really fucked this up." Camille puts on the mask he bought just for her, so she could keep him company while he cooked, liven up the abject boredom and lonely solitude of late nights making meth.

"You're not helping." The cabinets above the stove are completely ruined, the wood scorched beyond repair, coal black and faintly warm to the touch. The stove itself isn't faring any better, the metal stovetops coated in melted pan, sticky with a residue he refuses to touch. "This is all your fault, by the way."

"How is it _my_ fault? _You're_ the one who fell asleep." Their voices are muffled behind their masks and they sound like parodies of themselves, voices mucky deep and semi-audible, difficult to comprehend.

"_You're_ the one who wanted to have sex while we waited for the hydroiodic acid to form." It had been a bad idea, a _horribly_ amateur idea, and he'll certainly never take a risk like that again. By some small grace of serendipity he and Camille managed to put the fire out before it spread and the entire house went up in flames.

"Oh yes, because I forced you into it, you begged and pleaded with me not to take advantage of you." Now she's irritable and they're both in an unfortunate kind of trouble that multiplies existentially every second he isn't handing his promised supply of meth over to Wayne.

"I don't want to fight Camille." He sighs inside his mask, wishing he could pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers and _think_. He'd clung to the modicum of hope that some of the drugs or at the very least, that the supplies would be worth salvaging. While he was lucky enough to escape with his life, the universe seems to be conspiring against him to prevent him from keeping it. "We're going to need to whip up another batch of this as quickly as possible. Wayne needs his supply by the end of the week." His stomach twists in on itself, and his blood runs hot and cold at once, an impossible, shuddery rush of glass sharp fear. "I was afraid something this was going to happen, so I paid for a few months rent at a different apartment. I don't want to be where Wayne can find me when it comes time for him to collect."

"That's great and all Logie, but where the hell are you going to find another place to cook? This place was a godsend." Abandoned houses with functional gas stoves are rare gems to stumble upon.

"I'll figure that out. I know a guy who'll probably let me use his trailer."

"You're gonna work in a trailer? Are you serious?" She has her hands on her hips, her eyebrows raised, a look in her eyes that radiates disbelief.

"It's the only shot we have, unless you suggest we use your apartment." He effectively gets her to stop complaining, a rare feat, and he takes her smooth hand in his and guides her away from the burnt out shell of the kitchen, where lines of blackened ash and soot curl across the walls like varicose veins. "It'll be fine, we'll be fine." He's not the most convincing guy around. He can't give motivational, reassuring speeches, not when he's terrified out of his mind, worried deep down to his core. Drug dealers are willing to kill over these types of situations.

"You promise?" She flutters here eyelashes at him and it kills him every time, makes his knees go a little weak.

"Yes." He tells her, pulling the blue medical mask from her face, touching his thumb to the ruby pained lips beneath it. "I promise." Their kiss is sweet and inside her mouth he tastes bubble gum and a soupcon of chocolate from the candy bar they shared.

"Good." She puts her fingers on the side of his jaw and they rest there warm and butterfly light. "I got you a little present while you were out, baby."

"Oh yeah?"

"I thought it might make you happy." She smiles up at him, shoves her purse into his hands and waits.

"Goddamn." He breathes, grinning wide enough he thinks his cheek muscles might split and his face will tear apart right at the seams. Nestled in her normal sized purse; the most beautiful things he's ever seen, are half a dozen bottles of bright red cough syrup and sheet after foil sheet of cold pills. "I love you so fucking much." No one understands him quite like Camille, his very own little booster, with the stickiest, and prettiest fingers this side of Minneapolis. If he can cook up what he needs by the end of the week, he's going to be sure to thank Wayne for getting her to supply him with all the stolen medications and cleaning products free of charge. "This is the best present ever."

"I know." She laughs, light and lyrical, a noise that echoes off the run down house's empty, water damaged, peeling walls. "You're lucky I love to boost as much as I do. You'll never have to buy anything from the store again." She kisses his cheek and her hair is redolent of her favorite cherry blossom shampoo. "So, where exactly are you going to be moving off to? I thought we were going to get an apartment together soon."

"Not until I made enough money to pay for tuition, it shouldn't be more than a year and a half. Harvard is expensive." Harvard is the financial bane of his existence and he misses every single second of it. When he closes his eyes at night, sprawled out on his stomach in his apartment, he can still smell the musty odor of over a hundred thousand books in the library, the stale, acidic scent of formaldehyde in the anatomy labs, fetal pigs on the examination tables waiting to be dissected and inspected.

"You didn't answer my question."

"Oh." This isn't his best plan. He's never been too good with logistics; his forte is more along the lines of memorization and details, not so much the organization. The problem reflects in his writing assignments as well, he's not enough thesis and too much textual support. "I don't really know. I have an address and I told him I'd be moving in later this week."

"Huh." She clicks her tongue; it's her thinking noise, the one she makes when he's devising plans of her own, plans that typically work out better than his. They mesh together well, she's the yin to his yang, they're complementary colors, elements in an ionic bond. "You want to stay with me until you're ready to go?"

"Will you help me move?"

"I'll do better than that, baby." She slips her finger into his collar, jerks him forward. "I'll even let you store your extra stuff at my place."

"Goddamn." He pulls her flush to him, right up against his chest, and they fit together without a hint of awkwardness, aligning just right. "I fucking love you."

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**Reviews inspire me, apparently, lol. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Wow, another chapter out ahead of schedule. MinuteCloser2Falling is pretty much to blame for that, lol. She's become something of my muse/cheerleader, even if she doesn't know it. Your reviews have been making my day, sweetheart. Big thanks to the rest of you who have been so kind as to review, even if it was just a quick little something, it makes such a different to me. You guys are all great.**

**This chapter has some minor, non-graphic drug use, stuff might get more graphic later, but not at the moment.**

**And just to be clear, I don't condone drug use in any way, shape, or form, nor is this fic meant to glorify the lives of drug dealers. Drug addiction is a horrible thing that impacts not just the addict but all those around them, not just their immediate friends and family. This issue has touched me personally, so I just want all those who have also had to deal with this serious issue to know that I'll do my best to handle the topic honestly and respectfully. (Sorry, that's kind of a long thing to put in an authors note, and probably somewhat off topic, but I felt a disclaimer was in order).**

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It's fucking murder to go outside in the summer in a hoodies. He's dripping sweat in minutes, which is just gross, because James doesn't do sweaty, ever; it's bad for his clothes and makes his bandana smell something fierce. If he weren't such a small time vendor he wouldn't have to be the one who peddles his ass out to the streets to sell the goods by hand. If he were higher on the food chain he could be in a penthouse apartment, drinking whiskey and expensive vodka from crystal glasses, lounging in Armani sunglasses and two hundred dollar jeans. As it is, he's stripping off his hoodie and sticking to the shade, leaning against his usual spot in the park, right in the back of the big, old oak tree across from a bench that never seems to be clean of pigeon crap, even for a day.

"James! James, my man." Sean creeps towards him, walking slowly, trying his best to appear casual, but James can see the tremors that wrack his body, make his teeth click together in his mouth. Sean's aching bad for a fix, must feel like he's dying, his eyes blood shot to hell and watery because he hasn't slept in two days. James knows how it is, how you can't eat or drink or sleep when you're jonesing for a hit, all you can think about is the rock or the meth or the coke, your poison of choice that gets beneath your skin and gets you high. "I was waiting for you." Goddamn, Sean looks worse than death. His hair is thinning everywhere, he's missing another tooth, and he's swimming in clothes that were already baggy to start with. He wants to feel bad for the poor guy, to tell him to give the shit up, go home to his family and get _clean_. Sympathy doesn't make a good dealer, however, and Sean is one of his best customers. "I came every day and you weren't fucking _here_, James. I was dying and you weren't here." Fuck, Sean's starting to cry, he doesn't want to be here for this, he doesn't want to see the effects of his job. He's in this for the money, that's all. He can't handle the customers, he doesn't make enough to put up with the sobs and the DT's and the withdrawal and keep a straight, friendly face. Sean makes _him_ want to cry; he's so fucking sad and pathetic, dried out and half dead at twenty-four.

"Hey, don't get upset, dude. I gotcha, James is gonna hook you up." The only thing he can do to help at this point is sell Sean his meth, take a handful of crumples twenties in exchange for the little packets of glass, hope the high'll settle him down, even him out for the time being.

"Thanks James." Sean hugs him and his arms are nothing but bone, brittle and thin. It's weird, seeing Sean now makes him wonder how he used to be; if Sean was someone who used to be looked up to, someone strong and beautiful and full of potential before life kicked him down and his habit set in.

The transactions are slow in the daylight. Business really starts to pick up after the sun goes down and it's harder for the cops to see. He doesn't work nights much, however. Wayne has his own set of guys he has stand out on the streets at night. James is his go to during the daytime man, has him deal with the white collar junkies, the nice ones, the people who aren't going to cry and slit his throat for some free rock. Today is meth day, one of the worst, but angel dust day is fucking scary and he never sells alone then, because he's seen what angel dust can do. Weed days are his favorite, that's when all the college kids and young crowds come out, pretty girls who giggle shyly and buy the weed for the excitement of the purchase more than for the actual drug itself. The guys and girls who come for the weed aren't jacked to fucking hell, they can still smile and laugh and function without substance in their blood.

He sits in the shade, purple bandana around his forehead, two more on his wrists, and they flock to him like birds. The junkies call him Bandana Man because it's his thing, his trade mark. The bandanas are how he lets everyone know what he's selling without having to worry about incriminating himself. Red for weed, blue for coke, yellow is ecstasy, purple is meth, and so on and so on. He has a different colored bandana for every day of the week. They come slow, one at a time, moving in a trickle, but the stash in his pockets slowly depletes until he's empty and all he has as proof he carried drugs is the fat wad of cash in his pocket. Meth day might make him hate himself but damn does it help pay the bills. He gets to keep thirty percent of what he makes, more than most small time dealers do. He's lucky that Wayne is so generous and has direct contacts with a supplier, which lets him cut down on transport and production costs. He buys straight from the chemist and the drugs never have to exchange more than a few pairs of hands to get to the streets.

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"You're here early today." Wayne's watching TV on his plasma screen, his latest girl curled up at his side, pressing kisses into the side of his face.

"Sold out fast." He's never sold out of anything as quickly as he did today. He almost feels guilty for the part he plays in addiction, for all the young, curious kids he's given their first taste of rock or dope to for free only to watch them come back again and again, paying him in quarters and nickels, whatever they can get their hands on when the flow of cash starts to ebb. A drug habit is the hardest thing in the world to finance because no junkie hooked on the hard stuff can keep a nine to five job. "I'm gonna head out." He doesn't like being in the room with Wayne for too long; dude's fucking terrifying when he's high.

"Yo, you probably wanna find a new place to crash for awhile. The cops know dealers live in your apartment building, they're gonna do random searches on the tenants. Get your shit out of there while you can."

"Thanks man." The last thing he needs is to get busted for dealing. He's never been in trouble with the law before, he's just doing this until he establishes his acting and singing career. Drug dealing is supposed to be a temporary thing. He can't live in this world forever, not if he wants to keep his conscience and stay out of prison. He would not do well in prison, he's too pretty. They can really tack on the time for drug charges these days, so much that a dealer found with enough stuff can go away for years and years, half his lifetime. The last thing James wants to do is rot behind bars with just a cellmate for company. "I'll make myself scarce." Roommates are going to put a cramp in his style, make working tough, and if he had a better offer available to him at the moment he'd take it, but as it is, he doesn't. He can put up with some unwanted company for a month or two, hell; he might even like having someone who complains when he hogs the bathroom in the morning. "Can you get some guys to go to my apartment and bring me my stuff? I have the apartment paid off for like five months so they can leave my TV and shit there. All I need are clothes and stuff."

"Yeah, I'll get the guys right on it."

As he watches Wayne cut a line of coke on his glass coffee table and snort it in, he's inexplicably reminded of Sean and the cyclone of addiction.

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**Reviews make me happier than you guys know. ;)**

**besos y brazos  
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	5. Chapter 5

**Once again, I must thank MinuteCloser2Falling for her wonderful cheer leading. I'm finally posting a chapter the day I planned on, haha. Much appreciation goes to you, babe, my lovely, dedicated reviewer.**

**There's some Kendall/Carlos in this chapter, lol, but it's very minor. I'm not too sure yet how much I want to delve into the pairing, maybe enough for some sex or something, IDK, if anyone has an opinion about the subject I'd love to hear it, even if it's just an OMG YES or NOES CARLOS/JAMES FOREVER. I'd really like to hear what you have to say, but if not, I'll just go with whatever I feel. **

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Kendall spends the next four and a half days cleaning. He cleans so much there's a chance his hands will forever smell of Lemon Pledge and Windex, industrial strength Clorox. His apartment is more spic and span than it's ever been, he could eat off the bathroom floor if he wanted to. He doesn't, because that's fucking gross, but he totally could. He's got at least one roommate coming, hopefully another, and if that happens he'll be able to keep his apartment for another month and the rest of the months to come.

The first knock on the door has him bouncing on the balls of his feet, smiling from his cheeks down to the soles of his feet. He's not going to be homeless; it's the greatest feeling in the world. He doesn't have to go back and move in with his mother and little sister, which is the second best feeling in the world.

"Welcome!" To his surprise, it isn't the guy who's already paid in advance, it's the gay one. He'd been hoping he'd show up too; everything's gonna turn out just fine for him from now on. "I'm Kendall Knight."

"Carlos Garcia." Carlos has a firm handshake for a small guy and he isn't wearing his tight clothes. Instead, Carlos has on a pair of baggy jeans and a t-shirt, but he has faint black smudges under his eyes that mean he's had eyeliner on in the recent past, and hey, Kendall couldn't give a crap if Carlos wants to wear makeup, he's simply happy to have him. "I only have cash to pay for the month's rent, is that okay?"

"Dude." He claps Carlos firmly on the shoulder, feels a surprising amount of muscle definition underneath. "That is awesome."

"Cool, I was afraid you'd want a check or something." Carlos has a gym bag slung over his left shoulder and nothing else, not a box or crate loaded with books or trophies or DVD's anywhere. "Which room is mine?"

"The one on the right, go ahead and unpack your stuff. I'm going to wait for Logan to get here." Carlos seems like a good guy, a really good guy. He's got a sunny disposition that reminds Kendall of his sister Katie when she was little, just young enough to still believe in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy, but not so old that a piece of candy or a hug from her big brother couldn't make her smile like it was Christmas morning and her birthday wrapped up into one.

"Sure thing." Carlos disappears into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him, humming under his breath loud enough for Kendall to hear. He's not going to mind living with Carlos; he seems like a chill, easygoing guy.

He settles down on the couch, legs crossed at the ankles, and waits.

* * *

It only takes Carlos fifteen minutes to put away his stuff and he joins Kendall on the couch, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. Kendall feels for him, it's probably awkward as hell being in a new apartment with a guy who practically begged you to move in and assaulted you with his shitty, homemade flyers. He needs to work on his professionalism, or learn how to not be so needy. He should probably learn to be a better host too.

"So, Carlos." He clears his throat, follows one of the lines in the plaster of his ceiling with his eyes. "Where are you from?"

"I've lived in the city my whole life." Huh. He had Carlos pegged for the California/San Francisco type, what with his bright, bubbly demeanor. Even now, Carlos is tapping his fingers on one of his thighs and smiling, happy as can be, it makes Kendall wonder what Carlos did in the bedroom, and if he has any left.

"Cool." Conversation with strangers will never not be weird. He has to go through a circle of pleasantries, make small talk, and each time he does he dies a little inside, sounding more and more like an old man who only initiates conversations to talk about the weather. "Were you still living with them?"

"No." Carlos' smile falters, disappears when he presses his lips together into a thin line. "They're, uh, back in Mexico right now. You know, visiting family and stuff. My sister just got married."

"You didn't want to go with them?" It's a little strange that Carlos didn't go on the vacation with his parents. But, Kendall's never been to Mexico, so maybe Carlos has a good reason for wanting to stay. He's heard about the Moctezuma's revenge thing, that shit can't be pleasant.

"I couldn't go, too busy with work and stuff."

"What do you do?" He feels stupid and embarrassed, burning inside at the shame of not being able to forgo his dream of becoming a singer/actor and actually _pay his bills_. Dreams are clingy, exasperating, wondrous things he can't bring himself to throw away. His mom always said he had to be more practical, because being a struggling musician/actor doesn't bring in the bucks.

"I work in customer service, I work with people." The answer sounds rehearsed, but whatever, anything sounds rehearsed when you've had to say it enough in your lifetime.

"Do you like it?" He really does sound old, sitting on the couch talking about employment, all he needs is a six pack in his lap, a little less hair, and he's his father. The thought makes him feel hollow, rekindles the aching _loss_ from his childhood in his chest.

"Not really, but it has its perks. I get to be my own boss, so that makes everything more flexible. The hours are weird though, some of the customers too." Carlos stares down at the floor and his fingers clench and unclench where they sit on his leg.

"Yeah, but you have steady income, that's all that matters, right?"

"Right." Carlos beams and _damn_, he's so _gay_, in the original meaning of the word. He can see why they call gay people gay if they're all as upbeat and cheerful as Carlos. Shit, he'll go out and start liking cock if it means he'll be happy forever. "What about you?"

"I'm…currently unemployed." He tries to say it nonchalant, pretend like he doesn't have a massive money problem on his hands; that he didn't get Carlos to move in with him just so he can sleep indoors and eat every day.

"Oh." Carlos stretches and Kendall notices he has glitter on his cheek that leads a shimmery, shiny trail down his neck, beneath the collar of his shirt. He wonders if there's glitter stuck to Carlos' shoulder blades like gleaming, silver freckles. The thought drops his stomach, fills his belly warm, and he doesn't like it. He's been alone too long; he needs to find a girl before he really does want to know if Carlos has glitter on all the places he can't see.

A knock at the front door is sweet, sweet relief, cuts the tension and breaks the silence, leaves the room buzzing with excitement and curiosity.

"I'll get it!" Carlos is running towards the door before Kendall has a chance to get on his feet. "Hi, I'm Carlos, nice to meet you roomie."

The guy at the door isn't Logan. He's the guy with the bandana, only today the bandana is a deep, cerulean blue. He hadn't been anticipating this. This could be a problem.

"James." James pushes his expensive looking sunglasses up above his eyes so they can rest on the top of his forehead. "Where do I put my shit?" James has a bag in each hand, two large cardboard boxes at his feet, plus a suitcase that's bigger than Carlos' duffel bag and Kendall's backpack put together.

"Dude, are you moving your entire apartment in here?"

"No." James laughs, tossing a bag to Carlos. Carlos stumbles backwards under the sudden weight, falls flat onto his ass. "Just my clothes and some essentials."

"Holy shit." Carlos says, stunned and blinking, sprawled out on the carpet. "You have a lot of clothes."

"Ha." James grabs Carlos' hand and pulls him up. "That bag doesn't even have clothes in it, those are just my shoes." Carlos' eyes go as round and wide as silver dollars, mouth open in awe. Carlos and James seem to have hit it off, 'cause what more could a gay guy be interested in than shoes and clothes? Kendall's seen Will and Grace, Carlos and James are gonna be sharing body glitter by the end of the week. "I like your body glitter, by the way. It's not my thing, a little too girly for me, I like to go au natural, but it works on you."

"Mierda." Carlos rubs furiously at his face with his hands, the shoulder of his shirt. "I didn't know I still had it on. I had to wear it at work last night."

"They make you wear body glitter at work?" Customer service sounds like a shitty job.

"No, a customer wanted to return the makeup she bought. She got mad and threw it in my face."

"Man, I know how that is. Customers can be a pain in the fucking ass." Kendall feels like an observer in his own apartment, like he doesn't have a place at the moment, like listening to the conversation is the last place he's supposed to be. He wishes he could relate, and low in his belly, that same, warm and greedy place, he's disappointed that the glitter that sparkles in the light is on Carlos' shirt rather than his cheeks. It's not a good thought to have in his head, and it makes his stomach coil tight. "I work in sales, trust me when I say; I know exactly what kind of crap people can put you through when they think they're entitled to whatever it is you're selling."

"I know, right?" Carlos does better with James' bag this time around, curls an arm around it and balances it on his hip while he tucks one of the boxes under his left arm. "I'll help you unpack."

* * *

Logan doesn't arrive until nearly eight that night, long after what is left of the pizza the three of them devoured has cooled. James is texting on his smart phone, claiming it has something to do with work, while Carlos tries his hardest to beat Kendall at checkers. Carlos is terrible, though, and can't seem to get the concept that checkers is more about strategy than how many of your opponent's pieces you can take in a given move.

"You're cheating." Carlos pouts as he loses four checkers in one turn. It's his fault for moving the one checker that kept Kendall from double jumping the shit out of his offense.

"No I'm not, you suck."

"Nuh uh, I'm the checkers master. I beat my parents every game."

"Then your parents suck even harder than you do."

"Shut up, I'm totally going to get you. I'll do a sneak attack." Carlos makes him laugh, and aside from the fact that he's almost positive there is no way to do a sneak attack in checkers, he knows Carlos is done for. James is the one who gets up to get the door for Logan. Logan shuffles in moderately packed, with less shit than James but way more than Carlos. It makes him think that he's not the only one in the group with financial trouble, considering Carlos doesn't seem to have much to his name other than some clothes, a sleeping bag, a purple stuffed animal that may have been a rabbit once, and a silver watch he wears on his wrist.

"Dude." James shakes his head; his bangs moving too. "You can't do a sneak attack in checkers unless you like, tip the board over or something."

"Well." Logan says, leaning over Carlos' shoulder. "It's not technically a sneak attack, but—" Logan whispers something into Carlos' ear and three moves later, Carlos has taken his sole remaining piece.

"What the fuck?" He _had_ that.

"Oh yeah! I told you, total sneak attack." Carlos jumps up onto the chair and promptly celebrates his victory by dancing accompanied by pointing at Kendall and laughing. "I made your checkers my bitches!"

"Psh, you had outside help, I demand a rematch."

"You're on."

He has something he has to say first.

"So." He clasps his hands together, unsure of the proper way to welcome three complete strangers to his apartment. "Welcome to my place, it's good to have you guys here. I didn't know there would be three of you, but, hey, the more the merrier." Now for the bad news; he coughs once to keep their attention, slides his hands apart and down into his jeans, rocks forward on the soles of his feet. "There's just one little problem. I kind of don't have enough beds for three of you. I can fix that easy, my mom shipped me my old bunk beds when she heard I was renting my extra room. I know we're all too old for bunk beds, but one of the rooms—"

He doesn't get a chance to finish because Carlos lets out an excited squeak.

"I call the top bunk!"

"Dammit." James punches Carlos in the shoulder. "I'm taller; I should get the top bunk."

"I called it, too late." Carlos sticks out his tongue, eyes squeezed shut.

Kendall glances over at Logan, who is watching with an amusement in the corners of his mouth, lips curling up into a smile. His apartment is warmer now; he can feel it, all these bodies here to fill the empty space with heat. It's so, _so_ much better than being alone, absorbed in his financial woes, just the hum of florescent lighting for company.

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**Reviews make an author happy.**

**besos y brazos  
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	6. Chapter 6

**So, it's been awhile since I posted. Sorry for that, I was out of town and didn't have a computer. Needless to say, it was torture. lol I hope to never have to do it again. The posting schedule will probably get pretty erratic within the next two weeks. I'm staring college August 20th and I'm not too sure how much time I will have. I'd guess I'll be posting maybe once a week or so, I'm not sure, I have other fic obligations, but I won't forget about this story, I promise! Everyone who has reviewed has been so great, you guys are just amazing and make me want to write and write.**

**There's some sex in this chapter, not that graphic, but it's Carlos/OMC(he is a hooker afterall). And I'm really feeling the Kendall/Carlos at the moment and I have a storyline for it, so it's going to be in here, but James/Carlos is definitely going to be the main pairing of the fic. I love it to death.**

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Carlos has never had bunk beds before, he's never slept in one either. He shared a bed with his older sister until he was seven and then he got a bed of his own on the other side of the room, but for several weeks after the move he wanted to crawl under the covers beside Yoli and listen to the beating of her heart.

"The directions for this aren't in English." Carlos likes Logan already, but, he likes everyone. There are probably only one or two people in the entire world he doesn't like. His elementary school teachers used to call him 'sociable', which was a bad thing then, because it meant he couldn't stop talking or giggling or whispering jokes to the kids in the desks next to him. He supposes he is pretty sociable, considering he's never met a person who he didn't want to be friends with.

"We could wing it?" James reaches into the pile of metal and wood and picks up a piece that could be a corner or a spring or part of the ladder.

"If you want Carlos' bunk to collapse and crush you in your sleep." Logan's really smart to think of that, 'cause he was going to agree with James and start putting things together and hoping they stayed, using duct tape or super glue if they didn't. He wishes he could be good at building things like his papá, but all he's learned how to do so far is put in tile and fix leaky roofs. "I think I can decipher the majority of the French."

"Lemme see." Stuff always comes with directions in Spanish nowadays, except the bunk beds are almost eight years old and the only Spanish section is the kind they teach in schools and speak in Spain. "I don't know what the vosotros shit is about, but I can read this." Kendall divides their work up, gives them each their own jobs, makes the whole thing go easier.

"I hope we did this right. There aren't any extra pieces, are there?" Logan runs his hand along the frame of the top bunk, putting weight on his hand to test it, shakes the beds to see if the metal will rattle or give; come apart. Their craftsmanship skills seem to meet Logan's standards and he backs off. "It looks like we did everything correctly."

Carlos is so excited he almost can't breathe, can't stop smiling, and his cheeks ache and burn because he's using the muscles too much. He has a bunk bed; it's like a dream come true. He wants to go to bed right now just to try it out, only he can't, because he has other things to do. It's almost nine and there are places he has to be. He has a guy he's supposed to meet at the motel eight blocks down the street and then he has no more appointments so he has to wing it. He'll go and stand with the girls and other boys in the street, leaning against back alleys and smiling, legs too abnormally wide for it to be a casual stance.

"Carlos, I say we finish our rematch, and this time Logan can't help you cheat." He would love to go and play checkers with Kendall if he could, if his family in Mexico didn't need a new roof to keep out the summer and fall rains. He's going to be a tío soon and it can't be good for his sister to sleep cold and wet.

"I can't, I have somewhere I need to go." Tonight is one of the warmest nights of the summer and he doesn't want to lose the heat. When it's warmer the johns come looking for something pretty to distract them from the heat, suck their dicks while the air from turning fan blades cools the sweat on their faces.

"I brought my Wii, if you guys want to hook that up to the TV." James pulls the Wii out of his bag, holds it up and several of the controls dangle down from where they are attached to the game system. Carlos has only played a Wii once in his life and it _hurts_ to close the door after the rest of them leave, dig through his bag to find something to wear.

He decides on the only pair of leather pants he owns, a blue tank top to math. Separately they aren't something he wouldn't consider wearing when he's just being Carlos, but together they make him feel too dirty and look too good. He takes out his body glitter and dusts it along his jaw, the bridge of his nose, from his collarbone downwards. He feels too sparkly, like a fairy princess, but the glitter works wonders in the orange light of the streetlamps. He doesn't hate the glitter as much as he should and it makes him think he's more maricón than he assumed. The thought scares him, gets him nervous and twitchy, because he _can't_ be. His family would never understand and his abuelita and mamá would cry and his papá would just _look_ at him with all the disappointment and anger Carlos has never known.

"Whoa." He stops like a deer in the headlights, even though his brain is telling him to run. "Um."

They're all staring at him, eyes wide, mouths half open. It's not a bad look, not yet, just very surprised.

"You, uh." Logan's voice cracks and Carlos can see his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows, one hand sliding down to rub against the back of his neck. "Where exactly are you going?"

"Out." He tries to smile despite the blood rushing to his face, heating him up from the inside out. This is why he never wanted roommates. "I'm meeting someone at a club." He can lie, he's got this, and none of them are going to bother asking him more questions. What straight dude is going to want to know about a gay club?

"Hey." James leans over the back of the couch, his face serious, and points at him. "Use protection, no glove no love, man." Carlos' heart relaxes inside his chest. "I don't care if he looks like Brad Pitt, condoms are your friends. This is a herpes free apartment." James grins at him, laughing, and Kendall and Logan join in.

Carlos laughs too and a little speck of glitter flutters off his cheeks to the ground.

"Thanks for the advice."

* * *

He meets the john at one of the motels downtown, the kind that charge by the hour. There is an air of discretion to the whole thing, one he really isn't used to but should be. Usually he fucks in hotels or cars or wherever is most convenient, it's no big deal. This guy is going all out though, shrugs off an overcoat and a pair of sunglasses, a baseball cap too. He looked better with his disguise on.

"How much for an hour?" He rasps, fat hands rifling through his wallet, past wads of crisp, green bills.

"Depends on what you want to do." His normal rate is seventy-five bucks an hour, if he thinks the guy can afford to pay it, that is. He'd charge this rich dude more if he wasn't afraid it could scare him away. Carlos always has to be careful with the new ones, so he can be sure they'll wan to keep coming back. He's got himself a few regulars, nothing fancy.

"I want you to blow me." The john says, undoing his zipper, pulling down his expensive suit pants. The suit probably costs more than half the shit in Carlos' closet. He could buy his new sobrino or sobrina a brand new crib with the cash he could get if he pawned them.

"I can do that." He breathes, batting his eyelashes, licking his bottom lip.

The gordito has sweaty, small, round hands that slide across his face as he sinks to his knees, inches closer and closer to the dick that bobs up red and ugly against a pale potbelly. It's goddamn gross to look at, even grosser to touch firm with his fingers while he rolls on the condom, smiling the entire time. He wishes he could feel worse about doing this but he thinks he lost shame a long, long time ago. He doesn't mind it so much now. He can do anything with a grin these days, happy as he was every Christmas morning, digging for presents with his sister beneath the tree. Someone called him the 'happy hooker' before and the name isn't too far off. He's just glad to be alive, earning money to bring his family home, being the best first born and only son he can be.

He's never liked the taste of condoms, the bitterness of lube and latex, the slip and glide of it in his mouth. Lube gets caught in the back of his throat sometimes and it reminds him of being five years old and licking a banana slug on the family trip to California to see if it really tasted like a banana. The slime stuck to the roof of his mouth for days, no matter how much he brushed his teeth, gargled with burning blue Listerine.

"Fuck." The gordito shudders, his hands tight on Carlos' jaw, holding him still while he fucks his face. "Get on the bed."

His clothes feel off like water, flutter to the floor. He should be a lighter shade of brown where the sun doesn't reach, at the insides and backs of his thighs, the curve of his ass. He doesn't let the summer sun go to waste and he's the same color from head to toe. Yoli used to tease him when they were younger, say el cucúy had taken the real Carlos away and left him in his place. He wasn't brown enough like Yolo or papá, not a real moreno. Yoli would pepper his face with kisses afterwards, her long, dark braids hanging straight down her back, and take his lighter hand in hers. "I'm going to fuck you so good."

Gordito pushes in, sighing, and Carlos thinks of lying in bed with Yoli, pressed up against her in the night, playing with her gold earrings when it was too hot to sleep. They'd lay without blankets those nights and he'd strip off his shirt and Yoli would draw little shapes and letters into his belly until he could sleep.

It doesn't hurt, but Gordito fucks him carefully at first, fucks him like he'll break. He's ready before he ever leaves for work, stuffs himself full of his own fingers, bent over the bathroom sink, careful to never look up into the mirror and at his face. He lies on his back and counts the water stains on the ceiling, tries to ignore his mother's voice scolding _cochino_ in his head.

The john fucks him over and over, again and again. He has better stamina than anyone Carlos has ever seen and for the first time when the customer orgasms it's a relief. He's so _sore_ inside, between his thighs, the warm, tender place that costs people cash to get into when it should be free.

"Please." He pants, half sobbing as gordito gets ready for round two. "Por favor, no more, no más."

"I'll give you five hundred for the rest of the night." He's never gotten so much at once, and he nods his head, feels sweat trickling hot down his forehead. _Please_. He wants to beg, but gordito has already popped two Viagra, the fucking little blue nightmare pills, and pushes back in.

His skin is slick with sweat, so slippery the john's hands slide where they hold onto his thighs, anchor him in place. He tastes sweat and lube on his tongue, can't move or breathe, too warm for his own skin. There is a violent, throbbing ache in his hole, fucked out raw, worse than ever, worse because gordito just won't quit, thrusts hard and fast and greedy, taking all he can get.

The sun is threatening to rise when they finally finish, when the sweat on his body cools to nothing, makes him shiver on the soaked sheets. He's more tired than he can remember being, sits on the shower floor of the hotel and lets the spray run over him, wash the salt and lube away. He sits in that shower, watching clear drops of water dribble over his eyelashes like pre-come, and dozes off.

"Carlos." James rolls over in the bottom bunk, voice scratchy with sleep.

"Sorry I woke you up." He strips down to nothing, finds his boxers in the yellow light, buried at the bottom of his bag. His bones feel droopy like they can't support his weight.

"Someone got laid last night." James laughs, one eye open, already close to falling back to sleep. "You're limping."

"Uh." He climbs up the ladder, trying hard to hide his panic, fight the sudden rush of shame.

"I don't want to know, you slutty bastard." The bottom bunk creaks as James settles down.

Carlos listens to James breathe for a long time before he can sleep.

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**Reviews are gorgeous. **

**Besos y brazos  
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	7. Chapter 7

**Posting a new chapter from my new computer! Believe it or not this is exciting to me, haha. **

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed, as always. Nothing makes a writer happier to hear from people who are enjoying their work. **

**There's finally a little James/Carlos in the story! It's subtle and kind of hinted at, but it's definitely there, in a strange way, along with some more Kendall/Carlos.**

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Carlos is fast asleep, sprawled out on his stomach, pillow over the back of his head, one arm uncovered and dangling over the edge of the bed when James wakes up. The air blowing in through the window is still relatively cool, hasn't had a chance to bake yet in the sun. He can't remember the last time he was out of bed before noon, but he must have been young, not even a teenager, excited by morning cartoons.

"Morning." Kendall is at the kitchen table, drinking black coffee and flipping through the newspaper, too busy to read the comics or sports sections. It's a sad thing when a guy can't kick back and relax, but, then again, most guys have to worry about what's in their bank accounts, can't go out and buy the newest versions of their favorite things. If James were smarter he'd be saving up, wouldn't be stocking his closet and bathroom full of all the coolest shit he can find. "There's more coffee in the pot and take whatever you want to eat out of the kitchen."

Kendall doesn't wear real pajamas to bed, lounges in his chair in a simple pair of shorts. James spent over two hundred dollars on his leopard print, silk pajama bottoms, because the chicks really dig swanky shit like that, plus the fabric feels awesome on his skin. He's gonna have to take it upon himself to get his new buddy some class.

"Logan isn't up yet?" Logan went to bed earlier than the rest of them, slunk off only round five into their fifteen part Wii tournament.

"He was gone by the time I woke up. He must have had to work." Kendall stirs his coffee and steam curls up in wispy tendrils to his lips. "Carlos asleep?"

"He didn't get home until six this morning." Carlos did a proper walk(limp, really) of shame, crept into the room still in his clothes. "Lucky S.O.B."

"I've never been into the club scene thing." James' pop tart pops out of the toaster, the strawberry filling gooey and hot.

"You probably weren't doing it right." Going to the clubs is the best, dancing with hot girls until early in the morning before taking one of them home and partying until after dawn. "We'll have to go sometime, all of us, Carlos and I will show you how it's done."

"I think the clubs Carlos goes to are a little different." Kendall blows onto his coffee, takes a bite of his toaster waffle with chocolate chips.

"Yeah." He pours himself a mug of coffee and reflects on the differences, and the warmth spreading in his belly is just from his drink, nothing more.

"I knew I smelled coffee." Carlos comes stumbling out of the bedroom, blue boxers sagging low on his hips much like Kendall's shorts. It seems his new friends are all tragically devoid of style.

"I didn't think you'd be up for hours, stud." Carlos chokes, spits liquid onto the counter, coughing like he's dying. Across from him, Kendall grins into his cup, sneaks a peek at Carlos as he mops up the mess he made with paper towels.

"Oh my god." Carlos looks like he could clap or dance or both. "You bought Coco Puffs."

"You can't have breakfast without Coco Puffs." Kendall says and he has a shine to his eyes, a special smile he's so far only given to Carlos. James isn't too sure he likes it. This shit could complicate things, but he could be imagining everything, so he settles for watching Carlos pour himself a mountain of cereal, grinning from ear to ear.

"Guh." Carlos groans, cheeks stuffed. "I can see why the bird is so coo coo for Coco Puffs, these things rock."

They finish breakfast in silence. Kendall circles things in the paper in pen, James licks frosting off the top of his pop tart, and Carlos sucks down Coco Puffs faster than a vacuum eats up dust.

"Are you guys busy today?" Kendall closes the paper; frowning.

"I have work but I can get someone to cover for me." He doesn't much feel like working today. He hates crack Saturday with a passion. Sean shows up on Saturdays too and today James can't bear to see him.

"I'm not going to work today." Carlos shifts in his seat, wincing, and even though he's never taken it up the ass James' own butt clenches in sympathy. It can't be fun to sit at a desk when you've been ridden harder than a mountain bike. "Why?"

"We should do something; see if Logan wants to come too." He'd like that, he hasn't gone out with friends in forever, usually goes to clubs with some of the other dealers and tries to score with girls.

"Do what?" Carlos slurps chocolate flavored milk from his bowl and one thin, brown tinged trail of milk dribbles own his jaw to his neck and rests there sticky.

"I don't know." Kendall shrugs his bare shoulders; Carlos tries to lick the milk from his neck. "Movies? We can figure it out later."

"We should go shopping." They both stare at him, horrified and appalled. "Shopping is totally manly, we could get you more flannel Kendall and Carlos, you can, uh, have some more body glitter and leather pants, while I stock up on Cuda."

"Fuck no."

* * *

He kicks Carlos and Kendall's asses at Wii tennis while they wait for Logan to show up. Logan gets back around two, an hour after Carlos has fallen asleep on the couch and Kendall gets yet another strike in bowling.

"There you are." Logan smells like something burnt bitter. He knows the scent, it's one so familiar he can almost taste but can't place. "We've been waiting for you."

"You have?" Logan's eyes are red and glassy; brimming with tears he blinks away. "Sorry about that." He hacks a deep, chest rattling cough and sneezes, spits into a napkin. "I've been pretty busy." James looks closely and there is ruby red lipstick on Logan's neck in the shape of a mouth, color smudge over.

"Are you up for going out and doing something? If we're gonna be living together I think we should take some time to chill and get to know each other."

"I'm down, just let me go change, and maybe you should wake up Carlos."

Kendall pokes Carlos in the ribs and Carlos jerks himself awake.

Logan changes but he still has the chemical scent to him, stuck to his skin like the world's worse cologne. He fucking _knows_ the smell and it's killing him inside that he can't remember where it's from.

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They end up at the local ice hockey rink, picking through rental gear. He can appreciate his new buds more if they like to play hockey. It's been a favorite sport of his since he was old enough to stake. He used to spend hours out on the ice with his dad, practicing how to use his stick.

"You guys have no idea how happy it makes me to know you love hockey." Kendall throws his arms over his and Logan's shoulders. "I was afraid you might like soccer or something."

"I love soccer." Carlos says, wrinkling his nose and glaring up from his position on the floor as he pulls on his skates, carefully doing up the laces. "It's the national sport of my people."

Kendall makes an embarrassed, apologetic face; blushing.

"Uh, soccer is…interesting…I love—"

Carlos laughs with his mouth open.

"Ha, gotcha. I fucking hate soccer, I suck at it. My coach said I wasn't coordinated enough, not to mention he wouldn't let me wear a helmet to protect myself when I was in the goal. It's fucking dangerous! A ball could hit me in the head and kill me."

"Fuck you."

It's like being back in high school as soon as he steps out onto the ice. There's a certain feel to hockey he's never been able to explain, one only someone who plays the sport can really understand. It's in the ice, he thinks, the cold of the artificial wind on his face, the way the man-made ice burns the warm inside of his nose each time he breathes. Being in the rink spikes his blood with adrenaline, with youth and freedom. It was a simpler time in high school, before all of this, before he learned the hard way that just being gorgeous doesn't get you that far in life, before meth and drugs and more dirty money than he ever needed. Back then, when he was eighteen and stupid, he used to wear bandanas because he liked the way they looked. In a fucked up way, it's strange how life turns out.

"Yeah, take that! You're a bitch just like your checkers." Carlos cheers as he sends Kendall to the ground, high fiving James on his way past.

Kendall spits blood onto the ice until his teeth and lips are stained red, pushes himself up smiling. Injuries are part of the sport. They all hit the ice once or twice, get slammed up against the walls, faced smashed warm into the glass. There is glory in the wounds, bruises and missing teeth. The best way to impress girls on a first date is to bring out the old hockey scars and entertain them with the gory details.

In the end he and Carlos lose by a single goal. Eight seconds left in the last quarter Kendall and Logan manage to knock them both off their feet to get an uncontested shot on goal. If it was a real game he'd be pissed at himself and his teammates and his coach would make the team skate laps until they puked. Since this isn't real, however, he shakes sweat out of his beautiful, well maintained hair that's been ruined by his helmet. It took him fifteen minutes to do his bangs alone, an entire hour of hair care wasted by an afternoon of hockey.

"That was the most fun I've had in days." Logan's short hair is matted down, stuck to the top of his head with sweat. Carlos' hair hasn't survived much better. "We have to do this again, preferably soon."

"Yes, everyday."

"I have to agree with them Kendall. This was all kinds of awesome." His hair is damp and he smells like, well, like a hockey player. He's missed this, miss the fun. In hockey the only reason a guy is missing teeth is because another guy knocked them out, no drugs or needles involved.

They hit the showers and once again he flashes back to high school and team showers in the locker room, snapping towels and tossing around bars of soap. It's more awkward now than he remembering it being, especially now that he's the tallest guy in the room and has no choice but to look down if he wants to talk to the others. He's got the best body, he notices, not because he's _looking_ or anything like that, it's just part of being a guy. He imagines girls do the same thing when they're all together, but they check to see who has the best boobs. He definitely wins the boob/peck contest.

"Man, how hard did you get hit?" Kendall asks because Carlos still has a hint of a limp. That's got to be a hard thing to explain away to people. He's not into guys or gay stuff himself, no more than the average dude anyways. Almost everyone thinks about less than straight situations now and then. Someone in high school said that sexuality is fluid or whatever so no one is ever really gay or really straight, they're always a shade of in-between.

"It's not that bad." He watches Carlos button up his pants, only he isn't the only one watching, and he's beginning to think that this morning with Kendall isn't going to be a onetime thing.

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**Comments, questions, concerns, critiques; I'd love to hear them.**

**Besos y brazos**


	8. Chapter 8

**I don't have much of an author's note today. There's some talk of drug cooking in this chapter(which shouldn't come as much of a surprise) and implied shoplifting. Illegal activities are illegal kids, don't do them.**

**I feel like people might be losing interest in this story, which is fine, I understand, it happens. I have people leaving the occasional review, and it's great, but I'm not too sure how many people are actually following the entire fic, rather than just dropping by to read a chapter and not following through. If you want to let me know you are still reading that would be nice, but don't force yourself, reviews are earned, not demanded.**

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A trailer is not a conducive environment to the production of meth. Logan hardly has enough room for himself and his supplies, let alone the necessary space to maneuver himself in. He's mildly concerned about tipping over a boiling pot of chemicals and scalding himself, potentially fatally. Not to mention the ventilation in the trailer is shit and it's so stuffy he can't breathe. The air is thick with the toxic smoke and stale with humidity and heat. He's a slip of his mask or one spilled solution of unstable compounds away from a disaster. He found numerous photographs of meth labs gone wrong on the internet when he was doing research. He knows what can happen, just how high an explosion can get, how the flames are hot enough to char bones, smoke poisonous enough to make his throat bleed after a few whiffs.

"Logie, open up, I brought you more stuff." Camille brings him more than he'll ever truly need, bottles and bottles of cleaning products and cold medicine. The modicum of a trailer is lined with his supplies. There is only one little path from the door to the kitchen. "You wanted Drano right?" The jug is enormous in her thin, pale arms. He doesn't know how she carries all that she does, walking out of stores with pounds of stolen merchandise.

"Just put it in one of the piles, I'll get to it eventually." He refuses to admit to it but he likes the way the surgical mask looks on her, the way it fits snugly around her nose and mouth. He wants to kiss her though the mask and were he an impulsive man he'd try it. For now the contemplation is merely fodder for further fantasy, existing in the intangible realm of human thought.

"Watcha thinking about?" She pushes the stack of cold pills on the table that doubles as a bed away, hops up and wings her feet.

"The fastest way to get this week's product done. I have about a third of what I need made and ready to go."

"I can take it to Wayne today if you want." Camille is chewing gun; she snaps it audibly behind her mask.

"I already called Freight Train; he's coming to pick up what I have after I leave." He's both paranoid and cautious enough to avoid being around when Wayne or his guys come to collect. He's managed to avoid trouble thus far; he's hoping to maintain his fortunate streak.

"Wayne called me the other night. He was looking for you." She snaps her gum again, swings her feet far enough to playfully kick him in the ass. "I told him I haven't seen you in over a week."

"It would be safer for you if no one knew about us." Camille makes a face he can only half see. He's grown so accustomed to her expressions over the months that he only needs to see the quirk of her eyebrows or wrinkles in the corners of her eyes to know what spectrum of emotions she is feeling.

"Is there anything to know? What exactly are _we_, Logan?" Shit. This is the conversation he has so skillfully evaded. He's socially inept when it comes to relationships, specifically any discussions of said relationship. He doesn't entirely know what he and Camille are, but he'd prefer that they remain whatever they happen to be. "You said over a month ago we were going to move in together, then you tell me we aren't going to live together for over a year." She is sporting her angry eyebrows and if they weren't surrounded by deadly chemicals and an open flame she'd have slapped him across the cheek by now.

"We're dating aren't we?" She's his _girl_, the only real girl he has ever had. He'd compose sonnets to her beauty and the sound of her laugher if he could. "Exclusively?"

"We're exclusive?" The surprise lines in her forehead have his stomach dropping so his heart can sink effectively out of his chest. _God_. Nothing has ever cut him quite as deep.

"I…." He swallows the hurt in his voice; tastes burnt cough syrup and forming hydroiodic acid.

"Relax." She places her hands on his chest, runs her fingers up and down. "I was playing with you. Of course we're exclusive, baby." She pats his face. "It wouldn't hurt you to take me out, though; the only time we're ever together is here or at my apartment. You haven't even told me about your roommates yet."

"Fine." He takes her hands, and his arm warm from being too close to the stove whereas hers are cool from holding her water bottle. "We'll go out for dinner in an hour and I'll tell you anything you want to know about my roommates while the meth cooks."

"You spoil me."

He touches his finger to the tip of her nose.

"Damn straight."

"Spill cowboy. Orgies in your apartment, I want deets."

His roommates are difficult to explain. They fit together like cogs in a clock, complementary gears that help the hands on the face to turn. He inexplicably feels as though he's known the guys for years, since early childhood.

"Well, I share a room with Kendall. He's nice, generally down to earth. He doesn't have a job, but he's looking. I get the feeling we're what's keeping him in his apartment. I don't mind much." There are layers to Kendall. On the surface he's blond hair and bushy eyebrows, a casual, normal guy. He and Kendall talk some nights, when James and Carlos are probably fast asleep. They discuss hockey and girls, music and politics, whatever half formed topic enters their nearly asleep minds. Kendall shares a thought process similar to his, if not slightly less academic in focus. Kendall loves his mom and his little sister and life, nothing more, nothing less. "Then there are Carlos and James. I don't know much about Carlos, to be honest. He's gay, I think. He parties most nights and doesn't come home until early in the morning. He's the happiest dude around; I don't think I've ever seen him frown. He's a goofy, carefree person, kind of like a child." Statistics and probability and overall life experience lead him to believe that there is more to Carlos than what he puts out in the open. A guidance counselor once told his class that the iceberg theory applies to more than literature and that for all that people reveal about themselves, beneath the front lurks the remaining ten percent of their personality.

"Oooh, a gay roommate?" Camille puts her chin in her hands, crosses her legs at the knees, gazing up at him utterly and hopelessly interested. "Does he dress fabulous? Has he hit on you?"

"He dresses okay." Carlos dresses like the rest of them most of the time if he isn't going out. "No, he's never hit on me." That would be awkward but he has the strange suspicion that Carlos must be dating someone he never mentions. He doesn't appear to be a very sexual person, never mentions dating or answers James' numerous questions about where James' looks rank compared to Brad Pitt's.

"Tell me about James." She's disappointed, snaps her gum and uncrosses her legs, kicking him in the small of the back this time.

"He owns more shoes than you do and ninety percent of the stuff in the bathroom is his. He spends like an hour in the bathroom doing his hair." He's had to start waking up half an hour earlier than usual to ensure that he beats James to the shower or else he's stuck sitting in the living room for the next hour or so waiting.

"Are you sure he's not the gay one?"

"No, he's always going out with girls, it's crazy." James has a different girl every day of the week it would seem. He's not jealous, not that he'll admit to himself. Logically he understands how James can get as many girls as he does, but the selfish, inherently male part of his brain trembles with inadequacy when he and James are shirtless in the same room. "He's a great guy; don't get me wrong, he and Carlos are ridiculous together. They're two of a kind." They're all friends but roommates have a unique dynamic that's arduous to emulate. He can become best friends with James or Carlos and never have quite the same relationship with either one of them. The reverse is true for himself and Kendall, that's simply the way it is.

"Do you guys have fun together?" He's boring her, he can tell from the random movements of her fingers as they drum absently on the tabletop. He wishes he could be a more interesting person for her; he gets bored of his own life fifty percent of the time. He's entrapped himself in a monotonous trench. His days consist of hours in the kitchen, sweating over burning hot stoves and bubbling pans of lethal substances, threatening his health and liberty for cold, hard cash he can use to pay for Harvard, so he can become a chemist with a degree, rather than the drug cooking amateur he's forced to live as.

"Yeah, we've only been living together for like two weeks but we play hockey or video games or chill or whatever. It'd be easier to work if I had my own place and didn't have to keep all the supplies here." He shrugs, adjusting the heat of the stove, dialing the flame down a few degrees. "I enjoy having someone to keep me company at the end of the day. You always said I was an antisocial hermit who needed friends." Truth be told, he agreed with the statement, still does. Money for tuition is a goal but it shouldn't be his sole purpose in life. He has to get out and have fun on occasion, has to know more than drug dealers and boosters in this city. He's needed someone to rough house and play hockey carpet with, someone who couldn't care less about the street value of meth or the average price of thirty percent pure speed.

"You bet your ass I did. It's embarrassing to date a guy who doesn't have friends." She's teasing him, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him in until he's between her thighs. He's too hot to be aroused by it, has perspiration forming in fat beads along his forehead like condensation on a pane of glass. "Are you ready to get out of here yet?"

His stomach is growling, too empty for so late in the afternoon. He brought a lunch only to let it turn to mush in the heat, too afraid to brave the possible chemical contamination to go outside and take a few bites of a sandwich he threw together with two pieces of bread and something Kendall swore was turkey and cheese ground together in one slice. He wants to get the hell out of the trailer and take Camille out for a decent meal for once at a place where they have a dress code even, but he's going to have to save that for another day and settle for pizza or Mexican food instead. One day he's going to be a rich man, a successful doctor with a practice of his own and he and Camille are going to eat caviar from expensive china plates and their kids will swim in a pool built from marble and granite with a waterfall over ten feet tall.

"Sure, where do you want to eat?" It's marginally cooler outside than it was inside the trailer and the heat is beginning to fade as the sun settles low on the horizon, the distant states to the west. California is supposedly beautiful in the summer, golden sun reflecting off the ocean that stretches for miles and miles of blue against white sand beaches. He's going to take Camille there and they'll drink ice cold beer on the beach under a bright blue sky.

"I kind of have a craving for tacos."

"Then tacos we shall have." She grabs his arm and he could give her so much better. He could give them both the world if he had the money, if he were in school, if he could just attain his dream and be _happy_, with all the cash and success they could ever need so their only worry in life would be about just how happy they could make each other before they died.

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The taco shack is six blocks from the trailer in one of the 'bad' districts that he's come to be familiar with. He drops off his meth here sometimes, other nights he meets with Wayne at one of the various restaurants to exchange the cash in manila envelopes he doesn't open until he's safe in his apartment, the door bolted and curtains closed. There are drug addicts and drug dealers and hookers and pimps and every form of mendicant and miscreant society has to offer on these streets.

"Hey there papí, I've been thinking about you all day." He recognizes the voice. Carlos? He never expected for Carlos to be here. He is, though, walking down the sidewalk with an older guy who, quite frankly, is one of the fugliest men Logan has seen. He's a small man, compact, with thick legs and thick arms that more than likely jiggle beneath his suit when he moves like his stomach does. He's bald and short and pudgy. Carlos could do so much better. He doesn't know much about gay relationship dynamics or relationships in general, but Carlos is way out of this dude's league. It's rather horrifying to see them together, to watch as Carlos leans up to kiss him, going at it like Logan never wants to see anyone kiss in public, let alone a fat bastard and his friend.

"Oh God." He moans, disgusted, wishing for some kind of cleaning solution that could wash unpleasant images from his brain because he is never going to forget this atrocity of nature.

"What?" Camille glances over to where Carlos and his boyfriend (who is old enough to be his father) are making out. "Oh, gross. I'm all for gay love, but come on, that's just wrong. That guy—" She points to Carlos. "he could do so much better than _him_."

"Tell me about it."

Carlos deserves to be with someone who is at least near his age by a decade, it's the least he can do for his friend. He knows a few guys who are gay, not too well, but enough to know they aren't short, seedy, overweight little men with fat hands who paw at his pal in public, pressing him up against a spray painted brick wall. He's going to have to do something about this if he has the chance.

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**Besos y brazos**


	9. Chapter 9

**Before I get into the authors note, I just want to send unbelievable amounts of love to TurtlePath, CarlosLover93, ShatteredDiamonds, and of course my homegirl MinuteCloser2Falling for their awesome, encouraging reviews. I love all of you, this chapter is for you guys.**

**Alright, now into the author's note. There is semi-explicit sex in this chapter(about time someone had sex that wasn't Carlos with a skeevy man right?), it's not very graphic, certainly not as graphic as I'd usually get. has restrictions on the content I can and can't post, so I gotta get creative with my smut, more class and less cock. haha The sex scene is Kendall/Carlos, but this is still a James/Carlos fic, which you guys will see. **

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"I don't want to go to a club." He protests, sitting half naked on his bed watching as James digs through his closet, Carlos in tow. Kendall's not the kind of guy who goes clubbing, ever. That's not his scene, he's simpler, he likes to meet a girl the old fashioned way, through work or mutual friends, at a place that isn't designed solely for the purpose of drunken hook ups. He's more of a romantic than he lets on.

"Dude, even Logan is going, you're coming." James tosses him a pair of jeans he's only worn one and only because his girlfriend at the time had bought them for him and he'd been obligated to wear them the next day before stuffing them away where his shame could not be seen. His ex didn't have the best of taste; no girl who buys her boyfriend form fitting black pants can be a true fashionista. He looks weird in them and he feels uncomfortable, too exposed. He prefers his jeans loose and his t-shirts the same way too.

"Wear this too." Carlos throws him his white button up shirt and it flutters through the air to him delicately, strangely graceful as it glides.

"I fucking hate you two." He mutters, doing up his shirt, relieved that at least he isn't the only one dressed like some kind of wannabe player. James is wearing leather pants and a matching jacket with a light blue long sleeve underneath. Carlos has on his infamous leather pants, the ones that cling to his ass and his thighs, make him look _toned_ and built in places Kendall wills himself not to stare. He's having a few problems adjusting to a gay roommate, which is probably completely natural, and if he asked James and Logan would probably admit to the same type of issue. Carlos' shirt is short sleeved and white with a black design he doesn't recognize but doesn't expect himself to. He dresses how he does because he wants to, for no other reason than he thinks something looks good. "Why'd you have to agree Logan?" Logan shrugs in his outfit that was obviously picked out for him by his girlfriend, there's no other reason he'd be wearing a lavender colored anything out in public unless there was a girl behind it.

"Camille wanted to go out and meet you three. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone."

"You may have killed two birds but those were my birds and now I'm fucking pissed." He isn't really, he's just exasperated, embarrassed in his clothes, flustered because Carlos is smoothing some of the wrinkles from the cloth bunched up around his shoulders, smiling at him like he always does. He wonders if Carlos smiles when he kisses, if his teeth would be warm against Kendall's lips, and it's not a thought he wants, not a thought he needs. He's into girls; he loves girls, perky breasts and smooth thighs and curved hips. He's totally into that. He lives for long hair that tickles his cheek in bed and long, manicured nails that cut grooves into his back.

"Lighten up Kendall." Carlos slaps him lightly across the chest, beaming, excitement pink in his cheeks. "This is going to be fun. You can dance with all the hot girls you want."

"I guess." He gives up, smiling himself. Carlos' happiness is infectious, like a super contagious, joy causing disease. "Let's head out."

"Before we leave." James pulls a mini can of body spray from his pocket, squirts them each in the face before they have a chance to react and move out of the way. "There we go, now we're all Cuda-tastic."

"I didn't want to be Cuda anything." Carlos huffs, shoving James and scowling; glee beneath his thinly veiled anger.

"Chicks and other guys will be all over you, man, you'll thank me." James sprays himself in a thick mist of the stuff, so much the air his clogged with the musky, overly male scent. It smells like a guy who needs to overcompensate. "Okay." James smoothes down his hair and checks himself in the mirror, making what must be some kind of rehearsed model pout. "There's enough gorgeous here for the entire club."

"Yeah." Logan agrees, rolling his eyes. "The handsome factor in the room just went up exponentially, congratulations." Logan pushes James through the doorway urgently. "Come on, Camille is going to be there and I don't want her waiting outside for too long."

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The inside of the club is everything he anticipated. It's loud, music and base rhythms pounding in his ears, so loud he doubts anyone can think, which really isn't the point of a club anyways. No one comes to a club for deep conversation, he certainly hasn't. He's hoping to meet someone nice, someone with breasts and curves, someone who will make him forget about his weird fascination with Carlos. He wants someone small and sweet. What he really wants, more than companionship or for the weird gay vibes Carlos transmits to everyone, is a job, a way he can stop relying on his roommates to pay his rent and utilities and stock his fridge.

"Guys, I'd like you to meet Camille." Logan's girl is pretty, brown hair and eyes, short black dress and matching heels, lipstick the color of blood. She looks like a nice, wholesome girl, intelligent and funny and compassionate, everything a girlfriend should be. Logan adores her and anyone can see it in his eyes when he looks at her, holds her hand as he leads her to the bar to buy her a drink.

"Aw, Logan's girlfriend is cute." Carlos shouts just so they can hear him. All talking in the club near the dance floor is done with shouts and further away near the bar and the corners there's relative quiet, at least silence enough for people to _talk_ and still be heard. "She has a nice ass." The comment shocks him, has one of his eyebrows arching up with a will of his own, surprise he can't contain or hide; pure, genuine confusion. He doesn't know if gay guys can say those things and still be gay.

"Eh." James shakes his head, makes a 'so-so' motion with his hand. "She's good looking but her boobs are kind of small." He agrees with them, not that he'd say them when Logan is around. That's not what friends do. Critiquing a pal's girlfriend in private is okay as long as it's being done in the pal's best interest. "She really likes him and that's all that matters to me."

"Ditto." He nods, clinking his beer against James' before taking a long swallow. The beer is icy on the way down his throat, cool as the bottle in his hand, the frosted over glass.

"And now—" Carlos opens his arms, pausing for dramatic effect, his bottle of beer already empty on the table. "we dance."

He doesn't get into a groove right away, not like Carlos and James. He has to work past the self-consciousness first, the knowledge that any of the girls around him can look his way and size him up without his permission, without him being able to put on his very best show. Dancing horribly enough can scare away even the perfect potential girlfriend.

"Kendall." James dances over to him, winking at a girl to his right as he does so, moving his body to the beat. "That blonde chick is totally checking you out, go dance with her." He notices the girl James means, she's short and her long blonde hair reflects the low light while her hips move sinuous and dirty. He looks over to Carlos for approval, 'cause he can't go after her unless they both agree, but Carlos is grinding up against a petite African American girl, their bodies moving in tandem and another girl is pressed up against his back, a third waiting for her turn to cut in. Huh, it really is unfair that gay guys always get the hottest girls. The mystery blonde doesn't mind when he places a hand on her waist to feel her body's rhythm, adjust himself to her pace. She smiles at him, teeth partially hidden behind her hair, the kind of shy he was hoping for.

"Hi, I'm Kendall." He whispers loudly, his lips right beside her ear.

"Jo." She yells back and the introductions cease and the dancing takes over. He dances until there is sweat on the small of his back, on his forehead, threatening to ruin his curb appeal. He needs to take a break.

"This was nice Jo, I'll be back." She waves him off, steals a peek at him when she thinks he isn't looking, leaning in to giggle with one of her friends.

He joins Logan and Camille at the bar, orders a fresh beer, sips at it and listens to Camille and Logan explain how they work together. It's cute that they found each other that way, as though fate brought them together, if Kendall were the type of guy who believed in fate. He's come to find out that there is no such thing and you have to go through life on your own, do what you can and if you fail then you have to fight and claw even harder. He's only booked a low paying singing gig and a crappy kid's party acting gig in the last month but he keeps on trying, because his mom and sister would never allow him to give up.

"Wow." Camille is drinking something blue and slushy that comes in a martini glass. "Your friends are weird." He follows her gaze and sure enough, James and Carlos are doing what some would consider a cheap imitation of break dancing on a stage in the middle of the room. Carlos is pretty good at it but James is more flopping around than dancing and then they switch and _Jesus_, they have to be completely wasted already to be that bad this early in the evening.

"Believe it or not, when they aren't failing at a half assed dance routine they're not too bad." He knows this from experience. They've both beaten him at DDR enough to prove that they do in fact possess enough coordination to dance without making complete fools of themselves.

"Ha." Logan snorts into his beer. "They got kicked off the stage."

Carlos and James are back on the dance floor, dancing as intensely as before with less disastrous results. He's not ashamed to admit knowing them now that they've toned it down a bit. He watches and thinks of Jo's flat little belly, the roundness of her breasts, and it gets him going, has him shifting where he stands. He hasn't been with a girl in months; he's been too busy trying to pay the bills, which explains why Jo's and Carlos' thighs are interchangeable and why he's staring at his friend so intently.

"Are you having a good time Kendall?" He follows Carlos into the bathroom, splashes water onto his face and _thinks_. There's too much going on inside him, he feels like a passenger riding around in his own flesh.

"Surprisingly, yeah, I am." He could get used to coming here, used to the lights and the darkness and the beat, the infection of rhythm that gets under his skin.

"So.." Carlos grins, leaning against the sink counter. "You bringing that blonde back to our apartment or are you going to her place?"

"Neither." He's pretty fucking confused about life at the moment, doesn't want to bring an innocent person into that shit.

"At least get her nu—" He's always considered himself to be a smart person, but he's willing to reconsider it, because he's just done something that's about ten kinds of stupid. He's kissing Carlos and they both taste like beer, an underlying hint of salt from dinner. Carlos' lips are softer than he thought they'd be, probably from the lipgloss he wears on special occasions, the nights he tries to leave the apartment without letting them look at his face.

"I didn't mean to do that." He apologizes after he has very carefully pulled away, tasting the bitterness of beer flavored saliva.

"It's okay." Carlos shifts his weight on his feet, flutters his fingers nervously. "It happens; it's not a big deal."

He kisses him again and this time Carlos makes a surprised, sharp sound in his throat that Kendall swallows down as he pushes his tongue past Carlos' lips. He's being an equal mix of brave and stupid tonight, going for broke, all or nothing. He thinks he might just need to get the gay out of his system, because you can never be too sure whether or not you like something until you try it. "Wait." Carlos pushes him away by placing a hand on his collarbone. "I don't understand."

"I don't either." It's a hard thing to admit to and Carlos takes it well, smiles and moves his hand from the top of his chest to his face. "I mean, I'm gay right? Or bi?" Carlos laughs softly, pats his cheek.

"It doesn't really work like that. You are what you are, don't sweat it, just have fun. You're in a club full of hot people, pick one and enjoy it!"

He shoves Carlos backwards, right up against the sink and holds his face between his hands to properly kiss him, wreck his entire mouth. Carlos goes still and Kendall uses the opportunity to lift him up onto the counter, lean one hand against the mirror for balance as he leans in. The taste of beer on Carlos' tongue fades and then the kiss is just heat and spit, the occasional click of teeth. He struggles to pull Carlos' leather pants down his hips and Carlos doesn't help him with it, sits with his back against the mirror looking lost in thought, already fucked out and breathless.

"You okay?" He asks, succeeding in getting Carlos' pants off at last, mentally cheering his victory. He's not doing too shabby for his first gay experience.

"Yeah." Carlos breathes, chest rising and falling rapidly, sliding his thighs apart so they fit around Kendall's waist. "Does this mean something?"

"No, absolutely not. We're friends, that's all." Friends with benefits, he can handle that, can handle having that with Carlos.

"Alright then." Carlos grins, curling a hand around the back of his neck to pull him in.

Doing it with a guy isn't all that different. He's never thought about another man this way before. He's never been able to appreciate broad shoulders and a flat chest, the strength of another dude's thighs, only now he is, and it's something that will confuse him in the morning for sure. It doesn't feel like anything new when he finally nudges inside, breathing hard into Carlos' shoulder, unsure of what exactly he's supposed to do, if there's anything more to this than the basic fucking logistics. There's a greedy pull in his belly that flushes him warm and suddenly he's too hot inside his skin, against Carlos'. He's burning but Carlos is burning with him, hands on the counter to brace himself each time Kendall rocks in, finding an easy, simple rhythm and sticking to it. He falters with it sometimes, keeps his face in the curve of Carlos' neck, listens to the noises his friend makes, the sudden intakes of breath. It ends quickly, which is probably for the best, since they're doing it in the bathroom of a club where anyone can walk in and see. That makes the sex more exciting though, has him speeding up, trying to get them off the best way he can. Carlos narrowly avoids coming on Kendall's shirt, shudders silent and just the _feel_ of it has Kendall finishing too, mouthing the tender skin on Carlos' throat while he does. "Ready go to back out?"

Carlos cleans up with a paper towel, shimmies back into his pants, sweat glistening on the back of his neck, pearl and diamond bright.

"I'll be there in a second."

He stands in front of the mirror, stares at the outline of his hand printed onto the mirror from the heat of his body, and wonders what is supposed to happen next.

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**If you liked, loved, hated, raged, I want to know. Drop me a review if you feel like it.**

**Besos y brazos (kisses and hugs)  
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	10. Chapter 10

**Not much to say this chapter, except for thank you to everyone who reviewed, I love to hear all of your guys' thoughts and opinions(and yes, I'm talking to you TurtlePath, CarlosLover, FangLover, Amber, and Tantrex) you guys are all dears.**

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Carlos has always loved to dance; it's one of his favorite things in the entire world to do. He used to love going to weddings with his family and dancing with everyone out on the floor, little girls and older girls and the bride. His mom even enrolled him in a Hispanic folk dancing class so he knows the steps to the tango, the flamenco, and about a dozen other dances. When he was first hard pressed for cash he considered going into stripping, because the pay was better and sex was only included if you wanted it to be, but he didn't want to cheapen dancing, couldn't bear to let himself ruin it. He spends the majority of their night at the club dancing, alone or with all the pretty girls he can handle, his hands on their waists. Under ordinary circumstances it would have made him happy, to be out dancing with a girl, only he doesn't live under ordinary circumstances now, and what girl wants to be with a maricón who peddles his ass on the street for cash? He can't think of one.

"I'm _so_ tired." Logan drags his feet, shoulders slumped, barely shuffling.

"I feel great!" He bounces because he can't help it, because he's got too much energy beneath his skin. He feels like a hummingbird and his wings never stop beating until he's ready to sleep. He's used to late nights, lives by them, can stay up for almost twenty-hours straight before he starts to get sleepy, unless he's having a productive night. Too much sex tuckers him out. "That was so much fun." He isn't too sure how he feels about the Kendall thing though. It was fun, more fun than being with strangers, but he definitely doesn't want to mess up their friendship, and he doesn't like Kendall like that. He doesn't _like_ guys, not really, not at first, anyways. He's acclimated to them now, or whatever the word Logan would use is. He never looks at guys and thinks they're hot like he does with girls. He's not a very sex oriented person in general. He has enough sex, it's irrelevant, at this point in his life he can fuck a guy or a girl and he's going to get off either way. He wants someone to talk about stuff to, someone who _gets_ him, emotional intimacy and all that shit.

"We should go to clubs more." James yawns, shutting the door to their bedroom with his foot. James strips down to his underwear and Carlos thinks James is probably one of his best friends, maybe _the_ best, so he doesn't need to find a girl or guy to be with as long as he's got James. Kendall and Logan are great too but they're more serious than he is, they're smarter and sometimes it's hard to relate to them because of it. He doesn't get why anyone thinks he should want more when he has a Kendall and a James and a Logan. Kendall, James, and Logan are better than any girl.

"Totally." His stomach is sticky and he wipes off residual come with one of his dirty socks, turns to face the closet to make sure James doesn't see him do it. He climbs into bed and beneath him James hops into his bunk, shaking the frame. "Can I tell you something?"

"Shoot." He and James talk all the time, about everything, everything but work. Work is a weird subject for them.

"I sort of fucked Kendall." It sounds strange coming out of his mouth. He hasn't actually told anyone he's had sex since he was seventeen and Carmela Vasquez in the apartment next to theirs let him get to third base.

"Sort of?" James voice is different, like he's got his face buried in his pillow or something.

"Well we fucked and I dunno, you don't think it'll get weird between us do you?" He's a little worried about that. Carmela thought they were in love after they almost went all the way. She thought they were gonna get _married_.

"I didn't know you were into him." James' tone is accusation and betrayal, bitter as though Carlos lied to him.

"I'm not." He leans over the side of his bed to look down at James. James is facing the wall and all Carlos can see are his bare shoulder blades and smooth back. "He kissed me and he was really confused so I let him have sex with me."

"That's pretty generous of you." James hikes his blankets up to his chin and he still won't turn over to face him. "You could have said no, you know."

"Why? It's just sex, it doesn't mean anything. I wanted to help him." He feels pretty good about the overall situation. He helped his friend out, he was happy to do it, he'd be happy to go it again if he has to, but only if he has to. "I'd have done the same for you." James' shoulders tense briefly and then relax.

"Thanks, I guess." James rolls over, blows his bangs out of his eyes. "Now shut up and go to sleep, your ass needs its rest."

"Fuck you." He laughs, the tight feeling leaving his chest, and he nestles down in his bunk, ready to sleep.

"You offering, baby?" James mumbles, laughing too, and the room gets quiet.

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He and Kendall eat breakfast alone in the morning. It's not awkward like he thought it would be, it's no different than it's ever been. He eats the last of the cereal and Kendall has coffee and eggs along with thick pieces of toast. They don't talk about it, not that he expected them to, it's pleasantly _normal_.

"You up for some hockey tonight?" Kendall reads the paper every morning, scours the job ads looking for work. It reminds Carlos of himself back when he first realized how badly he needed money, when he had three jobs a week and it was still never enough. "I'm dying to get back in the rink."

"I can't, I didn't work last night and I have to try and make up for it." Yoli's baby is due in less than two months and he knows he can't afford to bring them home before then. He wishes he could be there to meet his sobrino or sobrina, so that he could be tío Carlos and go to the baptism, stand at his place as godfather and tío. "You and Logan and James can go." He wants to go with them, to play hockey for the night rather than stroll the streets with glitter on his cheeks.

"Me and Kendall and Logan are going to go where?" James pokes his head out of the bathroom and his hair is freshly done, blow dried and combed to perfection, every single strand in place.

"Play hockey." Kendall slides James a piece of toast when he sits at the table. "You down?"

"I wish." James bites into the toast, chewing almost thoughtfully, most likely thinking about his hair. "I have a party to go to tonight."

"Sounds fun."

"Not really." James flips his bangs out of his eyes, licks butter off his lips. "It's a party for work, I hate going to them." His face flashes something dark, something Carlos can relate to. "They're boring as hell, not to mention depressing, having to spend time with people from the office fucking sucks." He wonders what it's like to work in a real office, somewhere he isn't washing dishes or working with his hands, straining French fries, choking around cocks pushed past his lips. "I'm only going to stay as long as I have to, there's a problem with one of our suppliers that my boss wants to discuss."

"What kind of problem?" Kendall gets up, scrapes what's left of his plate into the garbage and puts the plate in the sink, runs water over it. Carlos himself is interested to hear this, real work is fascinating, not a dick or a condom in sight.

"One of the suppliers we buy from, we paid them in advance 'cause they always come through, but this time they never gave us the goods. So now we're out about two grand and my boss is pissed because all of us have been cheated out of our money."

"Can't you go talk to the supplier?"

James shrugs, steals a sip from Carlos' glass of orange juice.

"We can't find him; he's given us most of what we need but not all of it." James scowls, angry. "I can't make any money right now; I don't have anything to sell."

"It'll work out." He says, hoping it really will, he doesn't have any experience with this kind of thing, he just wants to see James smile, for the frustration to melt from his face.

"It better."

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He leaves for work at eight that night. He goes late because he wants to watch the sunset, loves how the sky changes colors, washed out pinks and faded blues, the prettiest painting in nature. He tries a new street corner, closer to the nicer part of town than he's used to, right at the cusp, where the rich and prominent public figures are more likely to wander when they're in the mood for action they don't want anyone to find out about, be it the press or their wives.

Business is slow tonight. He leans against a wall for support, trying to look devastated and pretty and everything he has to be to get picked. It's a tough thing to guess what a random stranger is going to be into. Sometimes they want someone a little more butch and he wipes the glitter off his face and toughens out his face, more bored and horny than delicate and desirable. Other times he gets a guy that is looking for someone soft and polite, more like a woman, and he flutters his eyelashes and cants his hips. Then there are the pleasant surprises, such as when women come looking, wanting hookers for bachelor parties, emergency dates, or someone to keep them from being lonely. They choose him most of the time because he doesn't look like he poses much of a threat.

"Are you a hooker?" A pair of men come towards him and their faces are flushed with excitement, an inside joke he will never hear.

"No." He replies; suspicious. Cops love to go undercover to bring them in, but they're never this forward about it, so he isn't sure what's going on.

"We're not cops." The taller one says, running a hand through his dark blond hair.

"Yeah, we promise."

Their promise doesn't ease his suspicions in the least. No cop comes out and admits to being a cop, not a good one, anyways.

He cocks his head at them, fucking confused.

"We need a hooker for a party, the gig pays a grand." Shit. A thousand dollars is _Pretty Woman_ money, escort money, stripper money, not street hooker money. Cops or not, he has to risk it.

"Let's go." He follows them to their car, slides into the backseat, watches the two of them smile to each other in the front seat. "Is it just the two of you?"

"No, there's gonna be a couple other guys, is that a problem?"

"Depends, I might charge extra." He's going to make a killing, enough for his sister to buy her baby a brand new outfit for his or her baptism, a whole closet full of baby clothes.

"Fair enough." The dark haired guy reaches beneath his seat, tosses Carlos a plastic bag. "Put this on." He stares at the clothes, turns them over to make sure they aren't dirty. "Is something wrong? We can find someone else if there is."

"No."

It's nothing he hasn't done a hundred times before, so he digs into the bag and puts the clothes on.

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**Besos y brazos**


	11. Chapter 11

**This chapter is getting put up a little sooner than intended, but damn, MinuteCloser2Falling deserves a belated birthday present. If I'd known it was her birthday I'd have written something for her. Gotta keep my ese's happy people.**

**Let's get down to business. There are warnings for this chapter. This is not a happy chapter. This chapter contains noncon, some graphic imagery, and offensive, disgusting language. This is written as serious as I believe the subject matter I'm depicting this. This is adult, everyone. There are adult concepts and adult language in this story that, frankly, make me uncomfortable to think about, let alone write and post for others to read. I don't think it's the noncon that bothers me too much, I've done that several times before in the Supernatural fandom, but there is some misogynistic language in here that is appalling and offensive to women, and I think that is what I dislike most about this chapter. I hope I'm not scaring anyone off, I would just hate for someone who isn't ready to read something like this to be upset or hurt by my words.**

**Once again, a giant, enormous hug to everyone who reviewed, especially MinuteCloser2Falling who goes overboard every time. You guys are the best, you make the experience of writing and posting this story so much fun.  
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Wayne lives in a penthouse apartment that's only a few blocks from the park where James sells drugs. He's always dreamed of getting a penthouse apartment someday, putting a Jacuzzi or a pool on his private section of the roof, some really cool swank to decorate the inside where he lived. Wayne has everything he wants, the girls and the money, the hands that only ever touch drugs he's going to use himself. When that day comes it's not going to be because of drugs, he'll buy it with his modeling money, and he'll never have to deal drugs again.

"There you are James." Wayne is sitting on his black leather couch, cutting four different lines of coke on the table, high as a kite, higher even, high as a fucking rocket. It makes him sick to see people like that, makes him think of everyone who has ever bought from him. "I've been waiting for you."

"What's up?" He knows the issue at hand, how pissed Wayne is, how pissed off _he_ is, how he's out a potential eight or nine hundred dollars because of this jackass. "Did you get the rest of the stuff yet?" As much as he hates selling meth he hates not making money more.

"No, but we know where the bastard is cooking it. We're gonna pay him a visit tomorrow, rough him up. Give him an incentive to work faster, you know?" Wayne lowers his face to the tabletop, inhales sharply and audibly, the worst case of the sniffles. "Ugh." Wayne shudders, grinning, rubs some of the cocaine onto his teeth, alive with the fake energy it gives him. "You want some?" He knows he should accept, it's the polite thing to do, and it's crucial to always please the boss.

"No." He says, swallowing, allowing himself to briefly wonder what it feels like, if it's as good as everyone says, good enough to get someone hooked for life. "I don't believe in sampling the merchandise, complicates shit." There are some guys that get addicted to the stuff they sell, so much so that they start dipping in and stealing, eventually coming up short. He's never seen it himself but he knows exactly what happens to people like that. They're the ones who wind up headless bodies in lakes and rivers, hands hacked off, unidentifiable. They are nameless city graves, a patch of dirt covered with grass, most of a body six feet underneath. He doesn't want to end up as _that_. It's enough to keep him clean.

There is a crash coming from one of the bedrooms, followed by muffled laughter, words said that he's too far away to make out. There are probably some guys in there fighting or fucking or both. One of the dealers always brings a hooker to the parties and anyone who is interested gets a chance to go at her and it's a terrible, uncomfortable thing. He'd had to participate once, right when he first started to work for Wayne, and he'd had to fuck a woman ten years older than him while five other people watched and egged him on, whistling and cheering when he finished. He has no interest in ever doing it again.

"Tyler, how goes it?" He asks, watching Wayne light a cigarette, taking one after a long moment of contemplation. If he has to pick a poison he'll take cigarettes over coke. They're hell on skin and the voice so he's only going to smoke it this once, just to ensure he doesn't look like a total sober pussy in front of everyone. The smoke burns on the inhale, causes him to cough, hack as though he's dying, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. Tyler laughs, claps him on the back and plucks the cigarette from his hand and smokes it himself. The burn in James' throat settles after a while, down from a scorching heat to something warm and sour, an ash and nicotine taste.

"Great, man." Tyler grins at him, surprisingly he isn't high, and the flush in his face is from recent activity as are the sweaty strands of dark hair plastered to his forehead. "The whore me and Evan picked up, goddamn. I don't know why we never tried bringing back a guy before. It might be a little gay, but shit, guy ones will do _anything_." His words strike up something in James' belly, a tiny flare of heat. "You want a go?"

Oh _God_ does he, so badly he can't understand it, can't understand himself. He's at a weird place in his life right now, the strangest crossroads of adulthood. He's angry for reasons he doesn't know, furious at Carlos for shit that isn't Carlos' fault. It _hurts _more than it should, than it was supposed to. Carlos fucked Kendall and he's so fucking pissed off. His friend lied to him, betrayed him, only he technically didn't, because James never asked, never _wanted_ until the words were out of Carlos' mouth. He's the tall one and the best looking one and has the sexiest hair, if Carlos was gonna like any of them it should logically be him.

"I'm not into men." Is what comes out of his mouth, his thoughts locked safely inside his skull, trapped beneath his gorgeous hair.

"None of us are fags, besides, from behind he looks just like a girl, we dressed him up nice and pretty." The temptation has him sweating, swearing to himself, and ultimately giving in, nodding slowly, something that isn't lust but isn't hesitation either fluttering in his chest. "It'll feel good bro, I promise."

"Where'd you find him?" He never thought much about male hookers before, figured that most of them dressed up like girls to get more work. He's seen dozens of hookers, has had some of them as customers, and all are women of every shape, size, and color a guy could want.

"Out on the streets. He was the first one we could find, the chicks we saw were fucking ugly. Me and Evan decided we'd rather fuck an asshole than one of their ugly snatches." Tyler smiles wide enough that James can see nearly all of his teeth. "This man is great. We told him there would be around eight of us and he agreed. When he realized we meant more than one of us were going to go at once he tried to change his mind, but it was better that he was feisty, we got to fuck the fight out of him." His blood runs cold and his stomach sinks. _Jesus_. He's out, he's not going to play, he's ready to go home and maybe catch a late movie with Carlos instead. They've done something disgusting tonight, fucked up and ugly, the worst thing a person can do. He blames the drugs and eight guys together in one room and he isn't going to make the poor man's life worse.

"I changed my mind." He tries to leave, turn around and go anywhere but inside that room. Tyler shoves him through the door anyways.

The hooker is on all fours in the bedroom, face tucked into the crook of one of his arms, nose in his elbow. The guys have put a long, brunette wig on him, a tight blouse that cuts off well above his belly button and a skirt that is barely fingertip length. Most of them are done for the moment, lounging on the couch and chairs, watching Evan thrust into the dude's ass from behind. He feels sick just being here, listening to the slap of sweat slicked skin, the grotesque noises only animals make. The room smells of sweat and sex and blood and jizz, horrible and overwhelming.

"Join the party James!" Evan beckons to him, moves inside the hooker so roughly he lets out a soft, hurt noise that could be a plea. "Why don't you welcome our friend mamasita." Evan is out of his mind, hyped up on coke and laughing, buzzing with alien energy, worked up like only drug addicts can be. "Use your boca grande." Evan giggles, quoting a song James will never be able to listen to again. Evan tips the guy's face up.

James feels sick, nausea burning the back of his throat worse than the cigarette. He's going to be sick he's so angry and he's moving before he knows what he's doing, shoving Evan onto his back. Evan's pupils are unnaturally wide and he jumps up, zips up his pants. "Shit dude, wait your turn next time."

"Get out." He says through his teeth, clenching them hard enough he can hear them grind together, a violent squeaking noise in his jaw. "Everyone."

"Right, you have performance anxiety." Tyler ushers everyone out, winks at him as he closes the door. "Have fun."

Carlos pulls the bright pink panties they made him wear up from where they are twisted around his knees. James doesn't know what to do, what to say, how to make it better, if anything can even make what just happened remotely okay. This is too complicated; this is heartache he will never know. The closest kind of loss he can compare this to is when he lost his lucky comb and the thought alone is belittling everything Carlos was just put through. Carlos sits on his knees and the backs of his thighs are red with blood, more of it trickling down his legs, forming dark spots on the carpet that won't come out, no matter how hard Wayne or anyone else scrubs.

"Carlos?" He says quietly, so quiet he can barely hear himself, and his voice doesn't sound like his voice. "Are you okay?"

Carlos spits something white onto the floor. James knows what it is but pretends he doesn't.

"I want to go home." Carlos is amazingly calm, wipes blood and come from his lips.

"Let's get you out of here." He isn't sure if he's supposed to help Carlos up or not. On television the cops never touch a rape victim without their permission; he doesn't know what to _do_. He wishes Logan or Kendall were here, they would know, and at the same time he's glad they aren't here to see this, because no one should have to. He's going to dream about this moment in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

"They took my clothes." Carlos' voice cracks a little and the tears in his eyes threaten to fall but never do, just tremble liquid bright when Carlos blinks.

"It doesn't matter; I'll buy you new clothes. I'll buy you whatever you want. I'll get a new box of Coco Puffs for breakfast." By some small miracle Carlos can walk, stands quivering on his feet and puts one foot in front of the other. James grabs his arm, hard enough for it to look convincing, and opens the door.

"Where are you going James?" Tyler shouts at him, a cigarette in one hand, joint in the other.

"I don't want sloppy eighths, I'm going to take this fucked out mess back. I want something fresh." Carlos flinches at his words. He doesn't mean them though; he never would, not in a hundred thousand years.

"Good luck." One of them waves to him and as soon as they're out the door Carlos lurches sideways and vomits, holding himself up with an arm against the wall.

"Shit, can you make it home? I think we should take you to the hospital."

"No." Carlos spits a string of saliva that clings to his lips, dribbles out sticky and slow, tinged yellow with bile. "I'm alright."

"No, you aren't. You can't be alright." He can't imagine how anyone can be alright, let alone Carlos. Carlos would have to have an ass of steel, a heart of something stronger.

"I am." Carlos is barefoot and the black skirt they put him in is obscenely small and skin tight. "It wasn't that bad." Carlos pulls a wad of hundred dollar bills from the front of the red shirt they forced him into. "I got paid."

"That doesn't make it okay."

Carlos smiles at him and he doesn't get how Carlos can _smile_ and manage to look like he is happy. He thinks maybe they gave Carlos some drugs too.

"You're a good friend James." Carlos has lipgloss on his mouth and it is a shiny, pale pink.

"Can you walk home?" He took a cab here but he Carlos doesn't seem like he's very willing to get into a cab with a stranger at the moment, especially one who might not approve of how he's dressed.

"No." It hurts him to hear it, so he steps in front of Carlos and hoists him up onto his back. He works out every day to keep his awesome abs and it comes in handy.

"We only have to go a few blocks." Carlos mumbles something into his neck, rests his chin on his shoulder, and his long, fake hair tickles James as it hangs down.

He decides on a shortcut through the park rather than to go the extra two blocks home. Carlos is still bleeding and it pools warm on James' back, soaking into his new shirt and each time he tries to hook his arms better under Carlos' legs to hold him up his fingers slip through the blood on his legs. The park is empty at twelve in the morning except for the occasional homeless person sleeping on the benches or in the bushes.

"Hey!" A guy on one of the benches sits up just as he's crossed the street. "Bandana man!" Crap. He knows the voice; it haunts him on the nights he can't get to sleep, when thoughts of new Cuda body spray and clothes aren't enough to keep the bad shit in his life away. Not Sean. Not now. This night is sad enough he'll remember it for the rest of his life. "Bandana man, wait up! James!"

Sean runs after him, into the street, and the poor bastard never sees the car coming. James never sees it coming either. The car races around the corner and one second Sean is bathed in yellow light and the next he's in the air, tumbling over the hood, and the crunch of his bones is the worst sound in the world. Carlos hops off his back and together they dart into the street where blood smells of salt and iron and despair.

"Sean?" Sean's legs are bent and twisted at wrong angles and he wheezes as he draws in a breath, coughs out blood.

Sean has blood in his eyes; it runs from the gash in his forehead, painting his face red and hot.

"Selena?" Sean gurgles, blood bubbling past his lips, eyes fixed on Carlos. "I missed you." James wants to cry the scene is so sad and pathetic, a dying junkie reaching out to someone from before, someone who left him a long time ago.

Carlos does something that surprises him. He doesn't move his face away when Sean touches his cheek with blood smeared fingers, paints crimson along his jaw.

"I missed you too." Carlos raises his voice an octave, speaking with a falsetto.

"I'm sorry, baby." Sean shudders, closes his eyes. "We could have had a good life together." There are sirens in the distance and James knows they need to leave. "I love you."

"I love you too." Carlos whispers, leaning down to press a kiss to Sean's forehead, giving false comfort to a dying man; Sean's last moment of life a complete and utter lie.

James can't leave Sean like that, he can't, and he takes his purple bandana from his pocket, Sean's favorite color of the week, and wipes the blood from Sean's face, cleans until he can see Sean's skin and the bandana is dark maroon and damp. The sirens wail louder, close enough he can see the flashing lights.

"Carlos we gotta go."

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The apartment is dark when they walk in, the door to Kendall and Logan's room shut. It's a relief, quite frankly, to not have to explain this, give a story behind why they are both covered in blood. He goes with Carlos into the bathroom and Carlos showers while he watches his arms in the sink until the water runs pink and his hands and arms are free of any blood. Carlos doesn't bother to pull the curtain and he showers with water hot enough to burn, fills the room with billowing white steam.

"Do you want help?" Carlos wraps a towel around his waist, grimaces as he walks, limping worse than ever to their bedroom. Carlos' stride is an exaggerated, crouched over gait.

"No." What little happiness Carlos had left in him after leaving Wayne's apartment is gone now. "I want to go to sleep and I want Coco Puffs in the morning."

"You got it." Carlos gives him a weak smile, changes into his only pair of sweat pants. "I'm sorry that happened to you." Carlos can't climb the stairs to his bunk, slides into James' instead. He doesn't mind sharing for tonight or for every night to come. Carlos won't cramp his style too bad.

"It could be worse." Carlos always looks on the positive side of shit; it's weird and beautiful at once. "I got off easy."

"Scoot over." He wriggles in beside Carlos, gives his friend as much space as he can. "Good night."

"Buenas noches." Carlos sighs; content. "Thanks James." Their noses are almost touching, so close he can feel the warm rush of Carlos' breath.

"Don't mention it."

For reasons he doesn't know and will definitely ask about later, Carlos kisses him with his faintly glossed lips before he turns over to sleep.

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**Besos y brazos**


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey guys! Sorry for not having time to get back to reviews, I've been shopping for school and adjusting to my new timezone. I start college on Friday, it's all kinds of exciting. I feel so old.**

**Thank yous to everyone who was wonderful enough to review! CarlosLover, TurtlePatch, MinuteCloser2Falling, and all of you! Your emails in my inbox made me smile, as they always do. I'm sorry for not updating sooner but I've been really busy and my posting will definitely be much slower from now on. Chem and Bio are going to eat up my life, I just want you all to know. **

**IDK if anyone is interested but I wrote some BTR fic that I posted over on my livejournal. I can't post it here because it's um, _adult_. I discovered the BTR kinkmeme and holy shit, that place is so fun. I have a Carlos/Logan fic, James/Carlos, and The Jennifers/Carlos if anyone wants to read that. I'm happy to link, but if not that's cool.**

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Logan is aware that an acute atmosphere of _wrongness_ has permeated the apartment the minute he leaves his and Kendall's bedroom. He wakes up earlier than the rest of his friends, so he can grab the first shower of the day and finish cooking in his trailer before the awful afternoon heat sets in. He isn't the first one up this morning, however, and that alone is an indication that something isn't right. James is _never_ up at six thirty in the morning, not once in the two and a half weeks they have been living here. Not only is James awake at this awful hour, he appears to be cleaning, and the smell wafting from the bathroom has the bitter bite of bleach to it.

"James, what are you doing?" He creeps closer; James doesn't look up at him, remains where he is on his knees, scrubbing furiously at the carpet.

"Cleaning." James has worked the soap in the carpet into a thick, white foam. The cleaning solution he used is lemon scented, vaguely similar to one of the compounds Logan uses to produce his meth.

"Cleaning what?" He crouches down beside James, takes the extra sponge and lends him a hand, wrings water onto the foam to wash it away, pats the soaked spot with a towel to suck up the moisture. There is a certain calming aspect to the ritualistic nature of cleaning and if he didn't already know that James' idea of stress relief was tanning on the roof, he'd be content to leave him alone and go on his way.

"I spilled some stuff last night." The answer is simple enough, but the stain James is trying to remove remains, a faded color, but prominent all the same. It is a dull, reddish-brown shade that could be tomato sauce or blood or chocolate pudding. Given their passion for pudding and the fact that there are currently two packs of extra-chocolate pudding in the fridge, his guess is on the latter.

"Eating pudding without us? That's cold, dude." He laughs, waiting for James to laugh with him, only to receive a small, forced smile in return. It's definitely strange behavior.

He leaves James to his task and heads into the kitchen to start the coffee maker. Camille stole him a James Bond coffee thermos as a joke a month or two ago and yes, it's pretty juvenile of him to use the black plastic thermos with an image of the infamous Bond tuxedo printed on the side, but it reminds him of her, and no coffee that hasn't been inside it has ever tasted quite as sweet. As he waits for the coffee to finish he sits at the table, watches James scrub, bent over, arms trembling with the effort to rid the carpet of each stain. "What's this bag on the table for?"

"Just some stuff I gotta take to the cleaners." James has his back to him and he's curious as to what is inside the plastic bag.

The clothes in the bag are for a girl, not James, very obviously not James. James could never fit into a skirt that small or a shirt as short, it's anatomically impossible. James must have a girlfriend none of them know about, a girl close enough to him that he's taking their laundry to the dry cleaners together. Beneath the skirt and blouse is a pair of panties. For a moment he feels embarrassed and dirty, because it's just plain skeevy of him to look at a friend's girlfriend's underwear, but the pink lace is dark with crusted over blood and James' shirt at the very bottom of the bag has a large blood spot on the small of the back. The blood has congealed nearly black on everything, from the skirt to the sleeves of James' shirt.

"What the hell did you _do_?" The clothes are crunchy and stiff between his fingers.

James flinches, wrings the sponge out in his hands over and over until it is bone dry.

"It's not what you think." There are only two possible outcomes, either the situation is infinitely worse or it isn't. He doesn't want to know if this can get worse. "Those are Carlos'." It does get worse, augments into something so heinously awful Logan feels physically ill.

"Where is he?" _Jesus_. This is something no amount of amateur psychology can prepare you for. This is the real world, the veritable darkness of life.

"Sleeping. He's not that badly hurt, he just got into a fight with his um…" James trails off, dunks the pale blue sponge into the bucket of soapy water.

James doesn't need to complete the sentence; Logan knows the words that will come next. _Carlos'_ and _boyfriend_ are the unspoken words festering thickly in the air around them like milk left to ferment to something resembling yogurt in the summer sun.

"I get it." He says, fingers burning, tingling with revulsion because they have just touched Carlos' blood, what has to be almost a pint of it. "I need to go take a shower."

"Don't tell Kendall, okay? I promised Carlos I wouldn't tell anyone." There are some things in life that aren't meant to be kept secret. Lies are like malignant cells, tiny at first, harmless if caught early, but as time passes they spread, seep poison and multiply.

"I won't mention it." He's furious at the universe, at the man he remembers from a few days before, short and fat and bald and shady. The son of a bitch _hurt_ his friend and he's not a violent person, never has been, prefers to take the pacifist, protestor route, but right now, in the raging, spontaneous moment, he's willing to make an exception to his self-imposed rule. "Are you sure Carlos is alright?" He's imagining various scenarios, bruised faces and split lips, black eyes and bloody noses, certain things he's not willing to allow himself to picture, even if the gruesome evidence points towards it with huge, glaring neon signs.

"I think so." James finishes cleaning, dumps the dirty water in the sink. The carpet is marginally cleaner, the spots of blood faded, and anyone who bothered to stop and look would only recognize a set in stain of ambiguous origin. "I'm going to go to the store to buy some more cereal. Do you want anything?"

"I'm fine."

He's not fine, not remotely so.

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His phone buzzes with a text from Camille when he lights up the stove in the trailer for the first time that morning, fills the claustrophobically small space with the warm odor of gas. His chest is tight and his stomach hollow, an invisible weight on his shoulders he can't support, crushing him slowly from the outside in. Working usually cheers him up in its own, strange way. There is peace and relaxation in the process of cooking meth, a scientific and academic process he adores. Chemistry labs were his favorite parts of high school and his first semester at Harvard. He loved creating something out of nothing, various common compounds and chemicals combined to form something powerful and new. If he couldn't become a doctor he'd want to be a chemist, preferably for a pharmaceutical company.

'**breakfast, y/n**?' His screen blinks, Camille's name in all capital letters.

'**wut kind?**' Any appetite he had this morning is efficiently gone, chased away by the low ache of sympathy and hurt. He can't get Carlos off his mind, out of his head.

'**idk, bagel?**'

'**sure, w/e**' Honestly he doubts he's going to eat what she brings him. He's too upset to enjoy anything, be it food or company or the successful termination of his debt. All he can think about is a greasy little man with his tongue down Carlos' throat, blood on pudgy knuckles, Carlos' thighs gleaming with blood.

The images flicker through his head like an eternal film loop, grainy and blurry around the edges, sharpened definition only when he allows his mind to roam. His imagination is the most graphic, startling indie film ever, and one of his best friends is the unfortunate star. He needs to talk to Camille about this, get it off his chest. He's not technically breaking his promise to James if he talks to Camille; she's essentially an extension of himself, another tangent of his brain, the better half of his existence.

The trailer rocks on its shocks, trembling with the force of the knocks on the door. Camille must have her hands full again, she has the bad habit of kicking the door with her feet when she isn't willing to put her items down to open it herself.

"Don't be so lazy." He calls out to her, laughing, cheerful for the first time that morning. "I swear you are the—" He's stunned, hit with a door opening too quickly, with too much force, directly in the face. The frame slams into his nose and he tastes the salt and iron in his blood.

The figure above him is tall, tall enough to block out the sun.

_Shit_.

It's not Camille.

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The bridge of his nose is broken, unquestionably broken. There is too much blood for it to be a simple bruise or a bad bump. It's broken and he can only hope it won't set and heal in an ugly, deformed way, because he has absolutely no way to afford a plastic surgeon to fix it, and no way in hell is he willing to give it the old college try. There are some things you just don't do. You can cook meth for tuition but operating on your own nose is a hundred kinds of stupid.

He wriggles his hands against the electrical tape around his wrists. This has a very crime drama feel to it, the tape around his skin, the room empty except for the chair he's sitting in, the carpet marred with patches of fresh, small pools of blood. If his nose wasn't in such excruciating agony he'd be terrified down to his bone marrow, to the very components that make up his cells, every organic molecule of his being. He can't breathe through his mouth and the front of his shirt is soaked warm with blood, colored a vibrant, startling red chillingly reminiscent of what he found on the clothes at the bottom of James' laundry bag.

"This was a bit excessive, wasn't it Wayne?" He sneezes blood, chokes on the sour taste of it as it trickles sluggishly down the back of his throat. "You know I was finishing up your order when Freight Train blindsided me."

Wayne cracks his knuckles, lights a cigarette and takes a drag.

"I just needed to be sure you had an incentive to get it to me as soon as possible. Shit goes out tomorrow and I need all my dealers well stocked." Wayne motions to someone Logan can't see and then there are three of them in the room. He can't believe it; this has to be some crazy, fume induced dream.

It can't be a dream, however, James looks too confused, his face mirroring Logan's own emotions. It truly is a small, small world. "My man James here, he's going to give you the 411, and then you're going to go out and you're gonna finish my stuff or Freight Train is going to pay Camille a visit next time, got that?" Wayne blows smoke into his face, but compared to the byproducts of cooking meth the smoke is nothing, a cleaner, safer sting.

"Uh." James coughs into his hand. "This is awkward."

"Kind of." He agrees, holding out his wrists. "Untie me, dude."

"Right." James cuts the tape away with a pocket knife, holds his arm to help steady him as he stands up. "I guess this makes me your boss, huh?"

"Shut up." His head is throbbing with every beat of his heart, aching in rhythm with the meter of his pulse. "We're not mentioning this ever again."

"I can live with that." James pauses, clears his throat. "But seriously, you need to finish up Wayne's meth."

"I was nearly done with the last batch until Freight Train came barging in. I'll be lucky if my trailer hasn't caught fire and exploded by now." He can't lose another batch of meth, all his stolen supplies, there's only so much disappointment and tragedy in life a guy can take.

"I can't believe you cook meth. I knew I recognized the smell on you. I should have guessed it was chemicals from cooking meth, man."

"I'm so sorry the scent of my current employment doesn't provide you with enough amusement." Wayne waves him a pleasant goodbye, his mood suddenly better.

"Nothing about meth is ever going to amuse me." James' eyes flash dark, and there is sadness and loss behind them, but he can't bring himself to ask. He's had enough misery for the day. He wants to go to his trailer, finish his meth, and put ice on his nose before his eyes swell black. "How do you want to explain away the nose?"

"I'll tell them Camille beats me."

"I'd believe it; she definitely wears the pants in your relationship."

James goes with him to the trailer, helps him finish up the meth, keeps Camille occupied while the last of the product solidifies and hardens in the pan. Soon enough he's done, though, not done for his lifetime, just for the moment. He can take a modicum of time to breathe now, relax one day before beginning the process all over again. It'll take him roughly two weeks to come up with another batch, but this time he can work decent hours, can spare himself the torture, the fractured noses. He's out of the woods for the time being.

"You're a really smart guy." James remarks on the walk home, uncharacteristically silent and still. James, much like Carlos, is typically bursting with energy that his meager corporeal form can't contain. "I don't get why you're here."

"Life just works out this way." It's the only explanation he can come up with on such short notice, yet it rings remarkably true. Life is volatile, life is unpredictable, life is a grain of sand on an always expanding, shifting beach, caught in perpetual waves of motion. "I could ask you the same question."

"I'd give the same answer."

"How's Carlos doing, by the way?"

"I dunno, Wayne called me before Carlos woke up."

Blood is beginning to dry inside his nostrils, crusts thick and makes it difficult to breathe.

"Can we stop somewhere? I need to clean out my nose."

They go to the closest restaurant, a quaint little place that specializes in Italian and pseudo-French, which shouldn't work, considering the two food types are antipodes, but it oddly does. It's an inconspicuous restaurant, out of the way of the normal flow of traffic, one of those well kept secrets that somehow everyone seems to know.

The mucous he clears from his sinuses is a spectrum of reds and purples, dark, angry colors combined with lighter greens. He's disgusted just looking at it. He uses wet paper towels in an effort to appear less like he lost a fight with Mike Tyson, cleans blood from beneath his nose and along his chin. His face is more presentable by the time he finishes and the white paper towels are pink and red from his blood.

"Excuse me." A man nudges past him on his way to the sink, standing out in his luxurious, designer suit.

"You son of a bitch." He'd recognize the fat bastard anywhere.

He's never gotten into a fight that he instigated before. He thinks he does pretty well for his first time, though, his opinion is certainly biased. His punches land on target, bloody a nose, a fat jaw, a sweaty little face. It feels so _good_ to hurt rather than be hurt, makes him feel powerful and alive.

"Logan, Jesus Christ." James pulls him off the guy, who lies curled on the floor, hands covering his face, sniffling and groaning as blood leaks between his sausage-like fingers. "What the fuck was that?"

"That's Carlos' boyfriend. The sick fuck is the one who hurt him."

James sets him down outside the restaurant, buries his face in his hands.

"It's not like that."

"Yes it is; I _saw_ Carlos with him. I _saw_." James can't deny what Logan saw with his own two eyes. He watches them _kiss_ with tongues and everything that made him want to vomit on Camille's brand new shoes.

"I believe you, but what you saw isn't what you think it was."

"I'm not following you."

"That guy wasn't Carlos' boyfriend, he was…" James swallows hard, rocks once on the balls of his feet and continues. "He was one of Carlos' customers."

The synapses in his brain fire, kick started to life, form the connections he was sorely lacking. He's an _idiot_, the smartest idiot there ever was.

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**Besos y brazos**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hey guys! I'm all moved into my dorm and I'm settled, so there should be a modicum more of regularity to my posting schedule, though I cant say for sure. Who knows what will happen once classes start, but I think I'll manage to have enough free time every now and then. We shall see.**

**I know it's not quite as long as the last two chapters, but I've been pretty swamped these last few days, and everything I wanted to have happen in this chapter happened, so I didn't feel there was a need to add things in when I can save information to put in another chapter through another character's point of view. Kendall's POV is pretty limited at the moment, which I'm sure all of you reading can understand. There's a kind of dynamic going on, so don't get impatient or upset if not everything you want happens at once. I am working on it! I promise you. I would not forget about this story. I'm having a hundred different kinds of fun with it. You are all so great. I've gotten more hits than ever on this latest chapter, though, not too many reviews, but I understand that tons of you are also starting school and it takes time to leave a review, time you might not have. I'd sure appreciate it, but I would never dream of threatening you guys if I didn't get reviews, I'm just not that type of person. I hope everyone who is reading is enjoying this story and if you aren't PM me or let me know and I'll see what I can do to try and make your experience with this fic a little better, but I can't work miracles people, there is already a basic plot and character development structure I have planned.**

**MinuteCloser2Falling and TurtlePatch, love you two like always.**

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Kendall hates to dream. He's a here and now type person, he dreams enough during the day, can't take the glorious build up of fantasy in his mind, only to be depressed with the immediate reality. He's not practical like Logan is, not optimistic like Carlos, nor preoccupied like James. He's something else entirely. His mom calls him a _realist_, which is apparently a notch better than a cynic on the ladder of life. His hopes and dreams a fruitless, yield nothing but disappointment and failure. He'd go back to school if he cared enough, wanted to work something nine to five, admit that he'd been pretty much unemployed and poor as dirt for nearly seven months.

"Shit." Logan curses out in the living room; Kendall can hear his voice through the bedroom door. Logan doesn't usually swear, not in the random, it's part of his normal vocabulary kind of way, not like he, James, and Carlos do. Logan uses big words, shows off without trying.

Logan has blood on his knuckles, blood on the front of his shirt, dark red and half dry. Logan's not the type to get into fights, none of them are. The morning is off to a crazy, disturbing start, like the entire world is out of character for today.

"What the hell happened?" Someone must have mugged Logan, tried to mug him, kicked the shit out of him for fun. That's the only explanation there can be for this.

"I got into a fight." Logan says, droplets of blood in his eyelashes, smeared angry and dark across his forehead. He's a fucking mess and his eyes and nose are turning purple.

"You look like a raccoon." Carlos doesn't look much better than Logan, walks like he's hurting somewhere, sharp and aching each time he moves, a pronounced, awful limp, and he's swimming in the sweat pants that are obviously James'. The sight of Carlos in the pants burns at him a bit, stokes a fire in his gut, lights him alive. "You should put ice on your face."

"What happened to you?" He makes Carlos sit down at the table across from Logan, waits while James wraps a bag of frozen peas none of them were ever going to eat in a paper towel for Logan.

"I fell down the stairs, James was there." Kendall glances over and James, waits for the confirmation. He believes the story already. Carlos has the weird tendency to run into and down and over things he shouldn't. Carlos was probably trying to jump down the stairs four steps at a time and tumbled when he landed wrong.

"Yeah, it was hilarious. He was kind of drunk, I wish I had pictures." James and Carlos smile but Logan makes a disgruntled, frustrated noise, slams his hand onto the table top too hard.

"Who'd you fight Logan?" Carlos changes the topic, wiping some of the blood from Logan's hands with a napkin, cleaning off his scraped knuckles.

"This guy who took advantage of a friend awhile ago, it's not a big deal. I feel bad about it now. Violence is never the answer." Logan's probably quoting Confucius or Gandhi, someone Kendall learned about in class but never cared too much about.

"Did you win?"

"Of course he won. I was there, I can vouch for him. He's a thin little dude but he's got some fire in him." James playfully shakes Logan's shoulders. "I couldn't really believe it at first. I never thought in a hundred years little Logie would get into a fight."

"Fuck you." Logan winces as he touches the frozen peas to his nose, tilts his head back as a fresh spurt of blood leaks from his nostril, slow and thick as syrup. "I'm going to go in the bathroom and take care of this."

"I'll help you." Carlos limps after Logan, a few spots of blood on the bottom of his sweatpants. Logan must have dripped on him somehow.

"What a day." He goes straight for the coffee maker. He slept in later than usual today, tired from a night of playing hockey on his own, running drills up and down the ice, starting a pick up game with a few guys and some kids from the local junior high.

"Damn straight." James cracks open a beer, licks the spilled foam from the lid before he drinks it, swallows down the entire can and crushes it against his forehead like Kendall's never seen anyone actually do. That was always a move from television and the movies. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you."

"How'd your work thing go last night?" He kicks back with James on the couch, tries not to eavesdrop and listen in on Logan and Carlos speaking quietly in the bathroom, the door halfway closed. He can see them reflected in the black screen of the TV. Carlos is wiping dried blood off Logan's hands, cleaning the fresh blood out from beneath his nose, holding the ice to his face with more tenderness than he's ever given Kendall. It makes him want to be hurt in the worst of ways. He shouldn't care this much.

"I don't want to talk about it. Work shit should stay at work." He really wouldn't know about rules like that, seeing as he hasn't had a real job since college, and waiting tables was not the highlight of his employment history.

"Sorry." He could really go for a beer, but it's only one in the afternoon, not the right time to drink. His mother always said that drinks were for five o'clock and afterwards, not a minute before. His coffee is lukewarm and bitter, left sitting in the pot for hours.

"Did you do anything last night?" He and James don't get to talk much, not one on one, it's nice.

"I played hockey, that's about it." He needs more of a life, to go out and get himself a girl. He has Jo from the club's number but he can't force himself to get around to calling her. He feels like calling her would cheapen the night, somehow. It'd be pretty rude of him to call a girl he ditched on the dance floor so he could fuck his friend in the bathroom. That's all kinds of rude; his mom would be disappointed in his behavior. The worst part of it is, not that he's willing to admit to it sober, he just plain doesn't _want_ her even though he should. He'd have been throwing himself at a girl like her a month ago, now he could care less.

"That sounds like an awesome night to me." James doesn't know; he doesn't get it. James has a job and more girls than he could want and he buys designer clothes and hides his eyes behind Armani sunglasses at midnight when there's not a speck of light in the sky. "You should get out more though. You should find a girl; we could even double date if you want." He thinks James might know, maybe, if Carlos is the kind of person who can't keep a secret, and he really is. Carlos can't lie to save his life.

"Can I talk to you about something? It's serious." James definitely _knows_, he can see it in his face. "I know you know about—"

"Yeah." James puts his hands up, palms flat. "I don't want the details."

"I figured." His coffee is lukewarm on his tongue like tepid bathwater. "You two are good friends, so I dunno, do you like, know if he's seeing anyone?" He feels awkward asking, as though he hasn't yet passed gay 101 and hasn't learned how to ask about possible mandates.

"He hasn't said anything, but we don't dish about boys and shit." James tenses and beneath his clothes his body is one long, lean line of what has to be discomfort. He supposes it's difficult to talk about stuff like this when you aren't into men, not that Kendall is, at all, he's only asking. There's no harm in asking.

"I wasn't implying anything." He says, making soothing motions with his hands. This is a bust, he's backing off.

"Then stop sounding so gay."

"Stop being a dick."

"Stop wanting Carlos' dick." He's pissed, genuinely pissed, hands clenching themselves involuntarily into fists. He's _furious_, he doesn't need this shit, not from his friend. Something is up with James and he'd ask if he didn't think James would punch him in the face. James is acting like Kendall's used his favorite comb without asking or borrowed his freaky Mangerine Action Spray and used it up.

James stares him down and oh dear God, he gets exactly what this is about. _Oh_. He had no idea. It makes sense James wouldn't want his roommates to get involved, it complicates things, would make life awkward. He wouldn't want to find out James and Logan were fucking, it'd be weird.

"Sorry, I was out of line. I've just been thinking about stuff, you know? Nothing in my life is how I want it to be right now. I'm fucking confused."

"I get it." James smoothes down his hair, breathing out. "I'm sorry for what I said, that was uncool, but you should find someone else. You guys may have fucked, that doesn't mean you two are dating. Honestly." James lowers his voice, like he's going to whisper a sad, awful secret. "You can and should do better than Carlos."

"You shouldn't say that." How can he say it? Who is James to judge someone he's only known for a few weeks?

"I don't want to." Carlos and Logan come out of the bathroom. Logan isn't wearing a shirt and his face is free of blood, frozen peas packed over his damaged nose. His eyes are almost completely black now, and he really does look like a raccoon, a raccoon that got the crap beaten out of him by the other, bigger raccoons. Fuck James, fuck his opinions, he might mean well but Kendall is an adult, he can make decisions for himself. "Oh Carlos, I just remembered something." He sprints off to his room, grabs the bad under his bed. This is going to earn him total best friend/dude-you-once-fucked brownie points. "I got this for you at the rink when I was out last night."

Carlos digs into the bag and his eyes go wide as saucers, round as a perfect circle, and his hands touch his present so lovingly it's as though he thinks it is made of glass. Carlos grins one of his signature, I'm-too-happy-to-not-be-a-robot smiles, the kind that are annoying in the early morning, and looks at Kendall like he's agreed to give Carlos his kidney. He likes being looked at that way, he could get used to it, would love to get used to it if someone would give him the chance.

"You got me a hockey helmet?" Carlos puts it on, buckles it beneath his chin, and caresses the polished black surface with his fingertips.

"You didn't exactly make it a secret that you loved it the last time we played hockey." He really hadn't, Carlos had stared at the thing with longing, depressed as all get out eyes, his lower lip trembling. It was like the whole damn world ended when he had to give the rental helmet back; like Carlos had to watch a hundred puppies get kicked brutally in the face.

"Oh my god, thank you!" Carlos jumps on him, clings like a monkey, one of his hugs that is less of a hug and more a full on nonsexual grope-thing. He can't explain how Carlos hugs, only knows the way he does. "I'm never going to take it off, ever. I'll even shower with it on."

"Dat's unsanidary." Logan can't pronounce his t's correctly, they come out as d sounds. It's hilarious and reminds Kendall of being eight years old and sitting on the counter in the bathroom, wriggling as his mother held his head back, a wad of toilet paper shoved up his nostrils to stop his bloody nose.

"Glad to hear it."

He is, but he shouldn't be, and it's probably only going to get worse.

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**Besos y brazos**


	14. Chapter 14

**Wow, I managed to get something done. I'm pretty impressed with myself. After I finished my Latino studies homework early today I realized I actually had time to write for this. It's not the best chapter or anything, but it has character development, and relationship development, and Kendall/Carlos and James/Carlos, which really is all any chapter needs. Well, other than sex. But there is no sex in this chapter, many apologies for that. I tend to keep it pretty clean over here on this site.**

**MinuteCloser2Falling and TurtlePatch and all my other reviewers are so lovely and thank you so much you guys for taking the time to write me a review. Numbers have fallen lately and it's so nice to know you all still care enough to leave me a little message, it really makes my day that you do. I can honestly say that without you guys(especially you TurtlePatch, you are the sweetest little stalker ever jk jk) I'd probably get chapters out slower if I didn't think too many people were waiting on an update. I love you all. **

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"Kendall wants to fuck you." James confronts him in the bedroom. He nods slowly, completely confused, and tries to ignore the deep ache inside him, ground glass and fire as he sits down. He's bleeding again, it's something he can feel, a steady, warm trickle down the backs of his thighs, his blue boxers tainted dark red, the dye staining to purple. The bleeding will stop, like it always does. He's never been this badly hurt before, but he takes a strange kind of pride in it. Pride because he's a thousand dollars closer, because his own throbbing misery is a sign of a job well done, because if he isn't proud he has to be something else, something dark and dirty. He chooses pride and doesn't think about that night, the blood on the carpet, the rug burns on his knees, the slip and taste of half a dozen cocks in his mouth.

"Can you blame him? I'm adorable." He grins, tapping the sides of his helmet with his knuckles, so happy his heart could burst. He can make the first payment of many now. He can buy his sobrino or sobrina something soft and pretty, a brand new bed to sleep in, a crib nicer than anyone in their barrio has ever had.

"It's not a joke." James' eyes flash scary and Carlos doesn't like the look. James should be happy that they're both okay, that it's a new day. He can understand though, why James is so upset. James watched someone he knew die, slicked his hands up in another person's blood, let Carlos bleed on him too. James is such a good friend and he thinks of the night before, of the warmth of James' mouth on his, a brief moment when he felt safe and loved and at peace. James' hands that were drenched red with his blood, James who carried him on his back for blocks, blood soaking through the back of his shirt, James who can look at him days he wants to smash his own reflection and grind his hands into the shattered pieces of mirror until all that's left of his knuckles are clumps of muscle and bone. "I think he bought that helmet to seduce you."

"Why would you say that?" His chest hurts, just a little, like James has broken something innocent and light inside him, made it heavy and hard, a jagged piece of stone. "He was being nice. It's not a crime to be nice. I love my helmet; don't make it into something dirty." No one has ever bought him something without expecting something in return. Johns buy him presents all the time but they are dirty things, not real presents.

"He probably wants to fuck you while you wear it, so he doesn't have to worry about giving you brain damage if he slams you into the headboard." James slumps down on the bed beside him, shoulders hunched, a faint trace of his Mangerine Action Tan on his wrist. He doesn't get why anyone would want to look like an Oompa Loompa when they could just spend ten minutes a day in the sun.

"Please don't say that." He asks, butterfly quiet, unbuckling his helmet and holding it in his hands, cradling it against his chest. He almost doesn't want it anymore. "Please." His new favorite thing in the entire world and it's ruined, covered in invisible smears of sweat and semen. He wants to punch James in the face but he never could, not to James. James looks out for him better than he can look out for himself.

"I'm sorry." James takes his helmet from him, puts it back on his head, buckles it firmly under his chin, his fingers touching Carlos' skin there, near where his pulse hammers too fast. "Kendall's just a nice guy. I didn't mean to say that. He's a pretty cool dude. Forget I said anything."

"No problemo." He takes out his watch, moves it back and forth in front of his eyes.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Hypnotizing myself." He saw it on the Discovery channel the other night. There was an entire special about hypnotism and the human brain.

"You are so weird."

"Says the guy who paints himself orange."

"Mangerine, not orange."

"Either way you look like a giant Oompa Loompa. Next time you spray it on will you sing one of the songs for me?" He dressed up like an Oompa Loompa when he was really young. His mamá has the pictures to prove it. He's only about two in them, standing next to his sister, painted horrifyingly vivid neon orange, wearing brown overalls his mamá made herself.

"Sure thing." James nudges him playfully and he can feel the dribble of blood on his thigh keep on rolling, hot and steady as it drips past the back of his knee. He's going to bleed on the carpet; he's already ruined James' sweats to the point of no return. He'll have to burn them later, go up to the roof and light a garbage can on fire, watch the pants go up in smoke, bright and beautiful against the navy blue sky. "You're bleeding again." He follows the line of James' fingers and sure enough the blood has collected at the cuff of the gray sweats, the faintest beginning of blood at the bottom, droplets shining on his bare feet.

"I'll be alright." He's never had it worse but he's seen people who have. Jennifer told him once that she did a bachelor party in one night and bled for the next two and a half days. She almost had to go in for stitches. He doesn't want stitches, not up there. He thinks of razor blades and thorns scratching his insides as he shifts, waiting for the thin ooze of blood to stop. "I sat down too fast."

"I think you should go to the hospital." James daps at the blood on the top of his foot with a tissue, wipes it clean.

"You don't want to take me to the hospital." He chants, waving his watch in front of James' face. A guy can dream that maybe, just for once, magic and hypnotism and faith will be worth something.

"That is not normal." James swats the watch away. "You've lost so much blood you think you're a hypnotist."

"I'm Carlos the Magnificent, bitch." He gets James to laugh, the worry lines in his mouth disappear. James slips his hand up the leg of the sweats and mops up the blood on his calf muscle.

"Take off your pants Carlos the Magnificent."

"I can do that myself, thank you." He can, he was just hoping to avoid standing up for a little bit. James spins on his heels, faces the wall, and Carlos cleans up, wads the bloody tissues into the bottom of the trash can, underneath their empty bags of chips and candy bar wrappers. The bleeding stops, just like he thought it would. It'll start again, he knows that, he read _Shawshank Redemption_; he's talked to all three of the Jennifers and heard the horror stories. He needs to spend time with them more, those girls make the bucks. "I appreciate the attention, but you don't need to take care of me. I'm doing pretty good." Not bad at all. He'd dance if he didn't think it'd kill him, if he wouldn't tear the last thread of whatever was holding his insides together and keeping the glass and fire ants and needles sensations at bay.

"You say that." James picks his comb up off the dresser, runs it once through his hair, makes a _Zoolander_ face at himself in the mirror. "We can talk about it, if you want to. Or we could not talk about it, but we probably should."

"We could talk about why the fuck you were there." He changes into a fresh pair of pants, pants he isn't afraid to bleed on and throw out later. He's careful not to pick his blue flannel ones, the last pair of pajamas his mamá ever bought him.

"Working." James shrugs, doing another Blue Steel face in the mirror, pursing his lips and turning his head to the side dramatically.

"As a drug dealer." He never thought James did something like that. It seems too terrible of a thing for someone as nice as James to do. James should be a model or something, not a drug dealer.

"Yeah, I sell drugs, are you going to start judging me now or can we focus on your issues?" He wants James to stop making fucking faces at the mirror and be serious about this. More than that, he wants James to drop it, because there is _nothing_ to discuss. James will deal drugs and he'll sell parts of himself and they'll both come home with money in their pockets.

"I didn't know I had issues." He's one of the happiest people he knows, way happier than James or Kendall or Logan. They're always complaining or whining. He never does that. He's happy with things just the way they are, mostly because he can't do anything to make them better. There is a surprising power in accepting ones limitations.

"Carlos, I _saw_ what they were doing. I don't want to be the one to cry rape but someone has to do it."

"Hijo de gran puta." He curses, kicking the edge of the bed. He thought James got the picture. "It wasn't what you think. They weren't raping me. Shit dude, I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

"They paid me for that, it cost extra, but they paid me. I was supposed to, you know." His face burns and he wants to go crawl off somewhere and die where James can't see him. "Pretend like I didn't want it. It wasn't fun, I didn't enjoy it, but I never said no." He should have said no at some point, to spare himself the agony. The past can't be changed, however, and his papá always said to make the best of the hole you dug yourself into.

James stares at him like he's an awful, disgusting thing.

"It's alright." James finally says, but he still has the _look_ on his face, and he doesn't make a move to touch Carlos, to be near him. Carlos thinks he might be the worst kind of person to exist, judging from the way James _won't _meet his eyes. His chest hurts so suddenly he almost can't breathe, so deep he didn't know he could hurt so much and not be dying. He just wants James to look at him like he was before; he'd give anything for pity and understanding, not this devastating revulsion. "You've given that up and you're gonna be okay."

"I never said I was quitting." He can't quit, not for almost another year, not if his family is going to come home, if he's ever going to meet his new little sobrino or sobrina.

"I assumed you would be." James is angry with him now, and the look is so much better than the one from before. "Why would you go back?"

"Because it's my job. Don't start dude, what you do isn't any better."

"It totally is."

He knows better than to get in arguments about stuff like this, but he can't help it. James is pissing him off all of a sudden and he doesn't know why James has to keep pushing when he should back the fuck off. No one else would be that stupid, no one else would care as much.

"Drugs _kill_ people." He knows what drugs can do and it's so, so awful. His sister's first boyfriend got hooked on drugs when Carlos was fourteen. He remembers how he looked after that, after the first hit, his eyes sunken and skin cracked and bleeding, how his teeth rotted away inside his mouth. Yoli wasn't allowed to see Raúl after that and after a few weeks none of them ever saw him again either, not until his picture was in the newspaper, just another junkie found OD'd in a bad part of town. "People pay for me and they leave happy, they leave me smiling."

"People leave me smiling too."

"And once the high fades they aren't smiling anymore."

There's truth in James' face, he can see it, but James covers it up, swallows it down, hides it behind his bangs.

"Fuck you."

"Not if you paid me a million dollars." It's a low blow and he wants to take it back, apologize, only he's angry and stupid and bleeding somewhere he can't see, somewhere he wishes he wasn't.

He leaves James there, standing at the dresser, combing his hair in the mirror, his shoulders tested like Carlos hurt him too deep; hurt him worse than he thought.

"Wearing the helmet I see." Kendall grins at him, taps his knuckles across the top.

"Forever." He grins and James is standing in the doorway now, watching them. "You wanna go do something tonight? I'm bored. We should see a movie."

"I'm down, let's go."

He follows Kendall out the door and doesn't look back.


	15. Chapter 15

**I've had this done for awhile, but I've been going over it, adding stuff, taking some things away. You know, normal author things. I'm happy with it as is, I think it has a pretty good dynamic going, more emotionally oriented, which can be fun when handled the right way. I'm not sure how I handle it, so it's up to you guys to let me know.**

**Uh, there's a wee bit of sex in here, it's het tho, so yeah. I know some of you don't click on slash fics for that, but it is minor and it serves a purpose. It's James/OFC, it means nothing you guys, I swear. I am a James/Carlos girl at heart, forever and always, though, Carlos/everyone is okay with me too, especially Carlos/The Jennifers. Yeah.**

**All of you who are so faithful and thoughtful to review deserve more praise than most authors give you. So I'll do my best to try and say thank you and let you all know just how much I appreciate all the comments you leave me.**

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James has more of Carlos' blood on his fingertips, a small, cold smear. He's crushed a bloody tissue up in his palm, wadded it into something small and mushy, something that wets the skin of his hand with blood. He wants to throw the soiled thing away and be done with it, be done with Carlos, but he can't seem to let go, of the tissue or Carlos. Giving up on him seems cruel, too cruel for James to ever do, because some people don't have choices in the matter and others just aren't as lucky as he is, and he gets it, he does. He lucked out, relatively speaking. He makes money and gets to keep himself clean. He doesn't really have to work, not in the honest sense of the word. He stands there and people flock to him, he's just the dude who passes stuff out and collects money, end of story. He doesn't know what it's like to stand over a pot of boiling chemicals and choke on toxic fumes or spread himself out in the cramped backseat of a beat up Honda and let some guy he's never met slide all over him.

"I hate living here." Logan mumbles, rubbing his skinned and scabbing knuckles. His face is worse than his hands. The bridge of Logan's nose is deep purple, almost black and his eyes are too. It hadn't been as bad earlier in the evening, but now it's pronounced and he looks terrible, broken and battered to hell. "I just want to make some cash, save up enough to pay college tuition, then take Camille and leave. I'm supposed to be majoring in biochemistry, I'm supposed to be going pre-med, this was never in the plans my college counselor made for me. She said I was going to have a great college experience." Logan's voice twists into something nasty and James wants to say he understands, because he does, because he feels it too. "Straight A's in high school really paid off now, didn't they?"

"Welcome to the real world." He kicks his feet up onto the scuffed coffee table, feeling as bad on the inside as Logan looks. "I was supposed to be a model; I had an agent and everything." At one point he had, at one point he thought he was going to make it. He'd been young then, though, bright eyed and confident and handsome.

"How'd you get into selling drugs? Seems like a weird career path, it definitely isn't linear, maybe tangential or something."

"I have no idea what that means."

"Just tell the story, dude." Logan has the bag of peas Carlos brought him wrapped in a paper towel and he leans his head onto the back of the couch and presses it to his nose gently. "Regale me with the sordid details of your past."

"Alright then." He isn't sure where to start, he can't pick a defining moment when it happened, it sort of just came to be. "I guess it started at my first modeling gig. My manager had me go in for, I don't know, I think it was underwear, I was just happy to be there, I didn't ask. I was in the waiting room with all the other models and someone started passing around speed. Everyone was taking them and I didn't want to look like a pussy so I grabbed a few and put them in my pocket. I think I told them I'd celebrate getting the gig with the stuff. Needless to say, I never got the gig." He pauses and it's so strange that this is really the story of how he got started, the moment that shaped his entire adult life. "Similar stuff happened everywhere I went, someone always had drugs, diet pills, ecstasy, speed, coke, whatever poison you could want. I always took some, never used it. Eventually the modeling gigs stopped coming and I was trying to figure out how to make a box of mac and cheese last for a week when I realized that I had an entire stash of drugs I could sell. There were a couple people in my building interested in buying and that attracted Wayne's attention. He came to my apartment one day and offered me a job. I took it, end of story." He feels dirty, like he gave in too quickly, like he should have said no and slammed the door in Wayne's face. He knows now what he should have done, but he didn't know then. He was young and stupid, dumb as any eighteen year old kid can get. "Is my past as exciting as you imagined?"

"Even more so. They should make it into a Lifetime movie." Logan pulls the peas from his face and a thin, thick trickle of blood oozes out his left nostril. "Damn, I pressed too hard." Logan tips his head back, stuffs a piece of tissue into his nose. "Next time I try to beat the crap out of someone you should stop me, also, you should keep Wayne from working me over."

"Had I known you were the guy dumb enough to lose an entire supply of meth in a kitchen fire, I would have."

"Shut up. I was distracted and forgot to watch the pot."

"Distracted?"

Logan's ears flush red and James knows the look, cracks his widest smile. "That's a good excuse; no one would hold it against you for scoring a little action." God, he can't even remember the last time he got some action himself. He's getting celibate in his old age. By twenty-two he'll be a fucking monk. "Ugh, I haven't gotten laid in forever."

"Forever? Aw, you're a virgin, how sweet. I admire your commitment to save yourself for marriage, it's very admirable."

"Fuck you; you know that's not what I mean. I just haven't had time, I'm always with you guys or working and all the chicks at Wayne's place are total skanks."

"Wait, you're serious?" Logan's expression is one of total and complete confusion. "I thought you and Carlos were hooking up."

"No." They aren't and he thinks he wants too and he never had these problems when he lived alone in his swank apartment.

"Really?" Logan pinches his nose to stop the blood faster. "Camille said she thought you two were fucking on the side."

"No, it's not like that." It isn't and he wishes it was and he's the worst friend in history. Carlos has enough problems without having a roommate/best friend who wants to fuck him so hard he can't walk for a week, which now, now that he _knows_, is about the worst thing he could ever want to do to Carlos. "I'm not a fag."

"First off, the word is gay, it's called being PC, dude." Logan shakes his head, exasperated. "Second, liking one guy doesn't make you gay; it doesn't even make you bi anymore. You're just a little further down on the Kinsey scale than other people."

"It's not like that. I'd never do that." Except he is and he can see it and he can't stop it. He's pissed at Carlos for doing what he does, for being so dirty, for not understanding how terrible it really is. "I would never, not to Carlos. Besides," This part hurts the worst of all, especially when he says it out loud; when he has to acknowledge that it's real. "He's out with Kendall right now."

"Out out, or just out?" In this case there isn't a difference, not once the two people going out have fucked, have pressed together warm and alive and liquid.

"I don't know but it doesn't matter. They already had sex; they had sex a long time ago. They did it the night we went to that club." The fucking club where he and Carlos were the most awesome people on the dance floor except for the fifteen minutes Carlos was off getting pounded into in the bathroom, probably bent over one of the sinks.

"I get it." Logan nods like he knows the answer to all of James' problems, like he suddenly has his entire life story memorized.

"No you don't."

"You're jealous; it's not that hard to see."

"I'm not jealous." He may be transparent as hell but he doesn't have to admit to shit. He'll live in denial until the day he keels over.

"James it's not—" He doesn't need this shit from anyone, let alone Logan. Logan who has a perfect little girlfriend, someone to call him and text him and love him, someone to pass the day with, someone James doesn't have. Logan doesn't get to say anything to him.

"Don't." He puts his hand up and inside he's burning, his chest is melting and his bones soon will too. "I gotta get out of here; do you need anything before I go?"

"No." Logan shakes his head, sounds so _understanding_ it makes James want to punch something in the face. "Have fun."

"Whatever." He grabs his leather jacket, runs his lucky comb through his hair. He doesn't look his best but it doesn't matter, his best is stunning but his average is gorgeous compared to everyone else. He doesn't need stunning tonight, not where he's going. "Don't wait up."

He goes to the closest club and cuts straight past the line like always. James Diamond always has entrance guaranteed; he doesn't even have to pay a fee. That's the life of the good looking, full of perks that don't mean anything in the professional world. He steps inside and sets himself to predator mode, to scouting mode, like he used to when he'd come here with the sole intention of finding a girl.

He finds one incredibly easy. Girls flock to him, always have, drawn in by his face and body and charm. Not that he's at his most charming tonight, he's surely and upset and that just makes the chicks think he's brooding and needs someone to fix him, make him smile. Girls love projects like that. He lets a pretty one, with dark hair and skin the color of coffee after you've added a thing or two of cream, long, long legs and eyelashes. She's a hundred kinds of beautiful and she has dimples when she smiles, when she touches his arm and tells him her name.

She's warm and wet as he sinks into her, presses her up against the backseat of her car, pushes her skirt further up her hips to give him better access. She moans his name over and over and _over_ and he can't for the life of him remember who she is, what she told him to call her. All he cares about is her nails digging into his shoulder blades and the way she whispers sweet, breathy little moans into his ear, trails off into Spanish and clamps her thighs solid around his waist. She comes three times in fifteen minutes and he can barely finish himself, too distracted, too angry at the entire world for fucking with him.

"That was great." She tells him, resting her head on his chest, stroking her hand down his stomach. "Do you want to go and get something to eat?"

He thinks about it, about how it could be, how he used to be, and she knows the answer before he does, because she pats him soft on the cheek and politely puts her number in his pocket with instructions to call if he can clear his head. If it was any other time in his life, he thinks he could probably fall in love with her.

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He's only been gone two hours when he heads back to the apartment, walks in through the front door with his jacket slung over his shoulder. Kendall and Logan are watching the hockey game they recorded the week before. He doesn't ask where Carlos is because he doesn't want to know, the images in his head are enough. He doesn't want to have to picture Carlos sliding to his knees ever again.

"James I—"

Carlos is sitting on his bed, wearing a pair of black sweatpants and nothing else. He's recently showered and his hair is still damp and there are tiny beads of water lingering on his collarbone where he didn't dry enough with his towel. He has glitter sprinkled on his cheeks the way James has always secretly liked and _Christ_, he's beautiful, sitting there, gazing up at him with his dark eyes. Carlos' expression changes, suddenly, morphs into something that looks a little heartbroken and indifferent, and he knows Carlos can smell him, the perfume and sweat and stink of sex on his skin, the lipstick smeared on his collar, the hickey worked into his neck.

"Carlos?"

"Never mind, it's not important." Carlos rubs furiously at his face, wipes off all the glitter, the sparkles on his skin, climbs the ladder stiff as ever up to his bed. "Goodnight."


	16. Chapter 16

**It has been forever since I've updated this fic. Many, many apologies to all of you! Though, I do believe this story is sort of approaching an end. I doubt there will be more than five or sex chapters left of this, unless I decide to continue past my original ending point. I'm not too sure what direction I want to go with this, but thoughts like that are for another day when I'm actually closer to the end. As of now I'm probably roughly two thirds done with this fic, but that can all change in an instant, depending on what kind of inspiration hits.**

**This chapter, once again, is more relationship focused than plot oriented, though there is substantial plot. The plot revolves more around relationships, I guess I'd say. There's jealousy, pettiness, cruelty, everything you'd expect to come along with relationship problems. I like this chapter, not as much as the previous one, but I enjoy focusing more on personal dynamics than simple plot. It might make less of an interesting read(though I sincerely hope not, for your guys' sake).**

**I think, somehow, there may have been some slight Logan/Carlos in this chapter. I don't know people, I didn't intend for that to happen, I don't really see it that way, but if you guys want to interpret it as such, by all means, you go ahead. There can never be too many pairings in a fanfic, that is my motto.**

**TurtlePatch and MinuteCloserToFalling are complete dolls, like they always are. They have been with this story since the beginning, and I can't thank them enough for this. I appreciate your patience, you are wonderful, lovely people.**

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Logan doesn't quite understand the intricacies of his friends' romantic lives. It's so simple in theory and in practice. He supposes, however, that odes have been dedicated to the topic of oblivion and absolute denial, so the strange dance of courtship he's witnessing shouldn't be all that strange. He finds it more annoying than anything else, exasperating to the max, because he is the one suffering from the swollen nose and fucked up face. He risked his own physical well being for Carlos' honor, honor he never initially possessed, but metaphorical honor nonetheless.

"I wanted to wait until we were alone to talk to you about this." Kendall settles down on the end of his bed. He presses more ice to his aching nose and waits for the confession of feelings to come on. Kendall's never mentioned what apparently went on between him and Carlos. Logan's never asked, he didn't know, he was content not to know. He doesn't need to be in the middle of all the sexuality crises in the apartment, he has his own problems. His life is measured in chemicals and pills and boiling pots so hot one wrong move could melt off his face, cause his skin to slop away, burnt beyond recognition, blistered red and raw.

"Yes?" He sounds nasally and irritated and he can still taste blood somewhere in the back of his throat even though it's been more than enough time to allow his platelets to take effect and the blood to wash away.

"When Carlos and I were at the movies—" He's been anticipating this for over an hour, waiting for Kendall to come to him, bursting with the kind of saccharine affection that makes Logan's blood surge and his heart skip a beat when he sees Camille's face first thing in the morning, the sleepiness in her eyes after they have sex. "There was a sign up about auditions, auditions for a singing group. I think this is our chance."

He's always been excellent with math, but this is an unexpected variable, a derivative he never thought he'd calculate.

"Our chance? I don't want to be famous." He dreams of college, of the scent of textbooks in a library, of solutions of potassium permanganate and sulfuric acid locked up tight in neat labeled bottles. He imagines pristine beakers and Bunsen burners, controlled flames and real test tubes and lab equipment. Quiet normalcy, that's what he wants, what he craves, what he wants to give himself and Camille. He'll go to college, become a doctor, buy them a nice house somewhere there are picket fences and stoves that only ever cook pot roasts and eggs. They will have two boys and a girl and every Sunday he'll grill hamburgers and hot dogs on the barbeque and smell the charcoal and lighter fluid and for one brief second he'll be reminded of the bitter burn of chemicals before the memory passes and his little girl wraps her arms around his leg, begging for her hot dog _right now, please daddy_.

"Everyone wants to be famous." Kendall's voice is light, jovial, but his eyebrows are arched, the lines in the corners of his mouth begging. This is more for Kendall than himself, he knows it, he wants to give his friend that, give him a shot. He's so tired of cold pill packets and extracting chemicals from bleach. He's so very tired of it all.

"I can't sing."

The lie sounds pathetic to his own ears, contains not even a modicum of conviction.

"I've heard you in the shower, please? Carlos already said yes and I know James is going to want to do it. The audition isn't for a week; we have plenty of time to practice." He's going to say yes; resistance is futile, more of a probability than the rising of the sun in the morning.

"Let's hope my nose looks normal by then. Ninety-nine percent of all boy bands were formed on aesthetics alone."

Kendall laughs, bright and open, cheerful and full, for the first time, of hope, something glorious and shining. A new day, a new chance, a new life; a new Kendall, he realizes, this is the beginning of a new Kendall.

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Something happened between James and Carlos. The problem hangs in the air, thick as the summer humidity, stagnant and ugly, choking hot. James looks at Carlos on occasion with an expression nothing short of apologetic and imploring, wrecked and devastated. Carlos, for the most part, ignores James in the worst way possible. Carlos rejects James' attempts to initiate conversation. Carlos answers without truly speaking, Carlos touches James without caring. Carlos is distant, uncaring, aloof, none of the adjectives that can be associated with the bubbly, goofy, undeniably hilarious and charming Carlos.

"Hey, do you want the last of the cereal?" James shakes the box of Cocoa Puffs at Carlos, yet another desperate effort to get his attention. Carlos can't resist Cocoa Puffs, that much they all know, and he smiles to himself because it will work and they can all get back on track again.

"Nah, you can have it." Carlos smiles at James, as sweet as ever, and pours himself a bowl of granola and yogurt instead, washes it all down with a glass of water instead of his usual sugar and cream spiked coffee.

James face falls and he eats the cereal out of pride, chewing ritually, hunched as he spoons it into his mouth, no real feeling in the action. Logan wonders if Carlos knows that he's punishing himself as much as he's punishing James, that he's denying himself something wonderful each time he scoots his chair closer to Kendall, gives Kendall all the smiles and words that James wants. It's like watching the middle of a romantic comedy, the part before the two lovers stop their pointless argument and accept that they are made for each other.

He's not going to interfere with nature; he prefers to let it run its course, to allow natural selection to sort its own issues out.

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By the end of the week his heart has taken up temporary residence in his stomach. He's hollow inside, empty and terrified, not for himself but for his friends who are counting on this going the right way to make it big. He can tell immediately that Carlos is going along with it for Kendall's sake, much like himself, but James is as invested as Kendall, urging them to practice for more than three hours a day. They've practiced so many songs and harmonies he never wants to listen to music again.

"This is going to be so fun." Carlos is _bouncing_, smiling and happy; grinning at them as though his smile is going to split is face in two. "I've never auditioned for anything before. This is like; I don't even know how to say it." He's not so sure Carlos excitement is entirely genuine, because he caught Carlos sneaking in at four in the morning that day, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands, smelling like sweat and the stale stench of another body. He's no right to judge, he's the one cooking meth in a trailer small enough that he wouldn't have room to scoot back more than an inch if the meth boiled over, sprang out of the pot angry and violent.

"Auditions are terrifying, dude." James says the words so of course Carlos only shrugs, focusing on Kendall again and the entire thing is so transparent and spiteful it makes Logan's insides clench bitterly hot and disapproving. James may have done something wrong but Carlos is going overboard, being someone vindictive and horrible.

"James is right. You've never been rejected so you wouldn't understand."

"Optimism." He chimes in, resisting the urge to scratch at the three layers of makeup James applied to his nose to hide some of the residual bruising on his face. "Optimism increases a performance by more than a percent."

"Liar." Kendall elbows him.

"You totally made that up." James agrees, elbowing him from the other side.

"I'm a scientist, I know science, bitches."

"I failed biology in high school and even I know you are full of shit." Carlos has a speck of glitter near his ear, Logan doesn't know how they've all seemed to miss it until now, though, judging from the crushed way James reacted this morning he thinks only Kendall is the only one who doesn't get the severity of the entire situation. Kendall might want this opportunity the most but Carlos is the one who needs it. Carlos is the one in real trouble. Logan remembers blood stiff clothing, the way James scrubbed the carpet with all he was worth, the smell of bleach and blood mingling together, acrid and copper.

"Fuck all of you." He chuckles, rubbing the spots on his ribs where the bony elbows of death collided with his soft tissues.

"Carlos might take you up on that, for the right price." James makes the joke, payback for everything, and it is so utterly not _okay_ Logan can't find the words to voice his fury. Carlos doesn't respond, only smiles when Kendall laughs, his face hard and tight the instant Kendall turns away.

"Please." Logan says, not sure how to ameliorate the tension. "Like I could ever get Carlos, not with my scrawny ass arms."

Carlos looks at him, thankful and so grateful it sends a slow shiver up Logan's spine.

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The man they sent from Rocque Records is obviously not in any position of real executive power. He is a short, wafer thin man with a thick black mustache, a greasy forehead and greasier slicked back hair. He's everything the stereotypical low level management position is supposed to be. He's merely a scout, not the big leagues, here to root through the majority of the crap to find the few possible nuggets of gold. It doesn't require much skill, just an ear that can recognize a tune and judge good looks.

They sing, on key and perfect, better than they ever have before. Adrenaline takes over, buzzes in their blood, increases the blood flow to their muscles, gives them that extra edge. They're lucky he doesn't ask for any sort of choreography. They never quite got around to perfecting the dance routine. His brain is simply incapable of relaying commands to both feet at once, especially in sync, and he usually stumbles straight into one of the other guys, brings everyone down with him.

"Nope, sorry." The guy licks his lips, sweat glistening fresh at his temples, his squinted brown eyes flickering from the paper in front of him up to them.

No.

Not at _them_. At Carlos. He's staring at _Carlos_.

Logan doesn't like it and suddenly he wants to slam his fist into another face despite his new resolution to stick to a more pacifist way of life.

"Aw, please." Carlos is looking back at the man, a spark of emotion in his face Logan can't place. "You really don't recognize me?"

Logan's jaw drops and he sneaks a glance at James to be sure that his has as well.

"I don't—" The man starts, sweating profusely, tugging at his tie.

"It's me Mr. Rivera, Carlos Garcia, I went to school with your son Billy before you guys moved out to California." Logan's chest unclenches and oh _god_, he's never been more relieved. "You gave me a ride home from school once, remember? You have that really cool silver Lexus with the reclining seats."

Rivera's eyes widen and the color drains from his haggard face.

"Little Carlos?" He asks, disbelieving. "It's a small world."

"Can't you give us another chance Mr. Rivera? Billy was my best friend; I'd appreciate it more than you know. We weren't that terrible, were we?"

Rivera swallows once, then smiles a grin that rivals Carlos'.

"Billy would never let me hear the end of it if I did anything else. Get the address in LA from the woman at the front desk, your audition for Gustavo Rocque is in two weeks, you'll want to get there as soon as possible to start practicing beforehand." River lays a hand on Carlos' shoulder, squeezes it long and friendly. "You promise not to tell anyone about this? I don't want my reputation ruined."

"Never." Carlos promises, absolutely elated. "Consider it our little secret."

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The uncertainty dissolves pieces of him, consumes his consciousness, every waking second. Their celebration with pizza and some drink Carlos makes out of Squirt and tequila feels trivial and meaningless. He doesn't _know_ and it terrifies him. He doesn't want to know either, but the curiosity will eat at him like acid until he satisfies it, puts the worries plaguing him to rest.

"Did you really go to school with that guy's son?" He corners Carlos in the bathroom, stupid and brave after enough tequila, tasting the sourness of the alcohol on the tip of his tongue. "Did you?" He's never told Carlos that he knows what he does. He thought he'd die keeping the secret, turns out this was just another part of his life about which he was wrong.

"No." Carlos admits, emotionless, monotone.

"Oh god." He croaks, tequila and lime and lime soda clawing its way up his throat.

Carlos places a hand on the back of his neck while he heaves his stomach up, kneeling by the toilet. Carlos' hand is cool against his skin.

"He has a son though; I saw the picture when he opened his wallet to pay me. I didn't really lie, not about everything."

"Oh god." Is all he gets out before he pukes again.


	17. Chapter 17

**So, this hasn't been updated in weeks. I'm so sorry. I did not intend to leave you guys hanging for that long. I'm not the type of author that does that, I promise. I've just been so busy with midterms and my birthday and school it's been crazy. I'm tentatively planning to update this and my other Big Time Rush story at least once a month, though I'm sure once winter break rolls around I'll have more than enough free time to bring you guys a chapter at least once a week, if not more. I would like to thank any of you who were patient enough to stick around and wait for an update. I know it's been a long wait and I sincerely appreciate it. To those of you who haven't, I'm so sorry to have let you down and it's entirely my fault and I hope you've found other stories that are updated more frequently that you truly enjoy.**

**I think the end to this story is approaching. I can't imagine having more than five or six chapters left. There isn't much left plot wise and I have an ending planned out. I do, however, have an idea for a sequel and I'm not sure if I should start an entirely new story for it or just continue it in here. I could do either, and of course a sequel would depend on how many people are actually interested in reading one, and I can't even think about writing a sequel yet. So that question will be saved for the final chapter, I think. I'm just giving you guys a heads up for later.**

**Once again, thank you to MinuteCloserToFalling and TurtlePatch and VictorG and Halfbreedlover and Jakegirl and all the rest of you darlings who were sweet enough to leave a review. I know I thank people who review in every chapter, but seriously, you guys deserve a little recognition for taking the time to leave me feedback. This chapter is for all of you. ;)**

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The week they get ready to leave is agony. Kendall feels trapped inside his own skin, tied down and oppressed. He can't stop moving, stop talking, stop laughing. Excitement is a permanent buzzing in his blood, as strong as a hundred thousand bees. They practice singing five hours a day, go over their simple but impressive choreography. It feels like the most important day of his life when they head out to the airport, driven in a record studio limo. Kendall hasn't been in a limo since his senior prom and this one is actually stocked with alcohol. They do a toast to Hollywood, to their future careers, and the champagne bubbles out of their glasses in a light golden foam, bright as the sunshine in the early morning.

"You know, I've never been in a plane before." Carlos settles in his seat with a smile, his eyes wide with silent awe. He's wearing the helmet Kendall bought him for reasons Kendall doesn't know and probably never will. He suspects he's afraid of crashing and thinks the helmet will somehow protect him, which Logan can explain to him isn't true. But, even if their plane did crash, they'd all be fine, because this is just that kind of day where everything is awesome and perfect.

"You've really never been on a plane?" James is the one who asks the question but Carlos looks at Logan when he answers.

"Planes are expensive; I shared a room with my sister until I was like seventeen."

"That is incredibly awkward." Kendall hasn't ever had to share a room with his sister and the times they did for some reason sleep in the same room for the night, Katie was so small she still slept in a crib or between two pillows his mom set up on the bed to keep her from rolling off the mattress.

"We stopped sharing a bed when I was seven." Carlos says the information as though that makes it better. Kendall's still kind of horrified and judging from Logan and James' faces; they are too. Carlos stares at the three of them and frowns. "You guys are _gross_."

"I saw a picture of your sister; I'd want to share a bed with her." James grins but Carlos just glares at him, a vicious anger in his eyes Kendall's never seen.

"Yeah, I bet you would."

With that, Carlos rolls over to go to sleep, and their section of the plane goes quiet. Kendall wants to ask, but there's time for that later, so he follows Carlos' lead and tilts back in his seat to dream of sun and blue water on white sand beaches, the Hollywood sign in big white letters, spotlights shining out into the night.

* * *

The studio puts them in a room at the Palmwoods for the night. Kendall's heard of the place, of course, anyone with a pulse has heard of the Palmwoods. It's more beautiful in person than it ever was in the pictures, even more beautiful than Kendall used to imagine when he was eating canned vegetables and frozen chicken nuggets for dinner every night for a week in-between jobs. It was something pristine and shimmering then, a glorious illusion almost made real and now it's entirely tangible, which gives it a gorgeous quality of its own. The manager doesn't seem too pleased to see them. He's overweight, a little haggard looking, annoyed and probably super busy.

Their room is kind nothing special. He's pretty sure the studio booked them the bare minimum. There's a main room, a half kitchen, and two bedrooms. The walls are a boring ordinary white, the carpet is cream colored, and the insides of the bedrooms have a blue motif going on: blue paint and blue sheets and blue pillows. Overall it's nice, not a minibar stocked with champagne and strawberries nice, but nice, plain and simple. It reminds him of family vacations with his mom and his sister, the time they drove out to Disneyland and Katie puked in the car three hours into the drive and they had to pull over for the night, all three of them forced into one room with a queen sized bed, snuggled together with Katie in-between them.

"I'm going swimming." Carlos throws his bag into one of the bedrooms and runs off to the bathroom to change, unbuckles his helmet and carefully places it on the table.

"I'm with him on that one." The heat in California is different from Minnesota. It's less stifling, the air a hundred times less thick. Out here it's dry and unbearably hot and there's no relief, no moisture in the air to make it a bit easier to breathe.

They all end up going to the pool, even though they should be practicing until their throats bleed. They have time and they should enjoy the ride, because this is going to be their life from now on, already paid for motel rooms and places with fantastic pools.

Logan calls Camille five minutes after they get there and his face practically lights up. It's adorable how totally in love with her he is. It makes Kendall jealous to think about sometimes, that Logan has someone who loves him so _much_, someone who calls to see how he's doing, who just wants to hear the sound of his voice. There are times he wants something like that, someone to make laugh and smile, someone to lie next to in bed, someone who makes his day better just by being there.

"Dude, how big of a splash do you think I can make?" Carlos smiles so wide it must hurt his face and peels off his shirt. Carlos is an even shade of brown even though Kendall has never seen him go without a shirt. He knows from experience that Carlos is the same color _everywhere_, which is pretty nice considering Kendall's white as a ghost beneath his own trunks. He pictures Carlos lounging naked on the roof of the motel to keep up that tan, and yeah, he's definitely gotta start tagging along with Carlos for nude sunbathing. Carlos' shoulders are broad and they gleam with water as he breaks the surface, clearly pleased with the splash he managed to make on his way in the pool.

"You okay James?" James has been awful quiet, unusually so. He's been meaning to ask and now seems about as good a time as any. "Did you and Carlos piss each other off or something?" He's never really thought about it, even though it's very obviously true, but James and Carlos were best friends a week ago. They were closer than any of the rest of them. Kendall talks to Logan, sure, and he hangs out with Carlos and he's fucked Carlos and he does stuff with James, but he doesn't have that special connection. Most of the time James and Carlos act like they've known each other their entire lives, like they were _meant_ to be best friends since the day they were born. Kendall wonders where exactly he fits into that equation, if James and Carlos are the best friends of the group; he wants to know what kind of position that puts him in. He's definitely something, unless Carlos sleeps around with everyone, and Kendall can't imagine he does. Carlos might go out without them to clubs, but he's never seemed like the type who has sex every night.

"No, why?" James stretches out further, lying back to tan.

"I haven't seen you guys talk to each other in like a week."

"It's nothing." James puts on his sunglasses, under the impression that Kendall's going to drop the subject.

"It's definitely something."

"Okay, yeah, it's something, but it's also none of your business."

_Shit._ Kendall's heart gives a twinge and he didn't know how he couldn't see it, how he could be so wrong.

"You two fucked, didn't you?" It hurts to say and he doesn't know why. It shouldn't bother him, except it really does. He thought, he isn't sure what he thought, he just _thought_.

"What?" James takes off his sunglasses and his eyes are wide, panicked and offended at the same time. "No. I'd _never_ fuck him, _never_. I couldn't do that."

"Jeez, I was just asking. You don't have to act like fucking him is as bad as bare backing a five dollar whore."

Before he knows what's happening, James is slamming him hard in the chest, hard enough to knock him out of his chair, send him tumbling over onto the ground. He narrowly avoids cracking the front of his face against the cement and ruining his face. He catches himself at the last minute, thanks to hockey reflexes. He bites the inside of his lip on the way down, however, and he tastes the salt and copper flavor of warm blood dribbling on the inside of his tongue, building up inside his closed mouth.

"Don't say that." James' fists are clenched and there is the wet slap of skin on the bare cement as Carlos pulls himself out of the pull and sprints over, glistening with water as he moves.

"The fuck." He spits a mouthful of dark red blood. "It's an expression."

"Well don't say it anymore. You don't know, okay? That's not something you should joke about."

"James, what the hell?" Carlos shoves James out of the way and offers Kendall a hand up.

"Nothing." James turns away, the muscles in his shoulders visibly tensed.

"You're such an asshole sometimes." Carlos wipes some of the blood off Kendall's shin with his shirt.

"I know." James sounds miserable, resigned. Kendall isn't mad at him, doesn't even blame him for how he reacted. James is right, Kendall doesn't know. He doesn't know about James' family. He knows he has a mom and a dad he visits every other week, but that's all. He doesn't know what his mother has ever had to do for money, he doesn't _know_.

"I'm fine Carlos." He pushes Carlos away, spits once more, and this time his saliva is only tinged faintly pink. "I deserved it."

He has no proof, he's not going to ask, at least not yet, but there's more to James and Carlos than he thought before. They might not have fucked, but James likes Carlos a hell of a lot more than a normal best friend. Kendall's sympathetic to that, really, he likes Carlos that way too. He can't help but like him that way, the smooth line of his bare shoulders in the sun, the cheerful way he smiles each and every day, the sound of his laugh, the stupid and cute way he wears his helmet for absolutely no reason.

James might like Carlos that way too, but Kendall isn't so sure he wants to see James get him.

* * *

Logan's gone for almost an hour that afternoon. He and James and Carlos are ordering a pizza when Logan finally gets back to the room. He's pale, quiet, and he can't stop doing things with his hands, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"You and Camille just get done having phone sex?" James sniggers and Carlos laughs around a mouthful of complimentary peanuts.

"No." Logan's voice is soft; it has an almost surprised quality to it.

"Something wrong?"

"Yes." Logan says, plopping down on the couch, leaning forward to put his face in his hands, elbows resting on his knees.

"What happened?' Carlos is on Logan in an instant, one hand resting on his shoulder, concerned even as he chews on a handful of peanuts.

"Camille's pregnant."

The room goes completely silent and Carlos doesn't swallow the lump of peanut in his throat. Kendall wants to say congratulations, just to break the silence, except he's not sure he can mean it. A baby means responsibility; it means Logan going back to Minnesota or Camille coming out here. It means diapers and late nights and everything that isn't compatible with their new rock star future.

"That's great?" Carlos gets out; choking a bit on all the peanuts he stuffed in his face.

"No." Logan sighs, scrubbing a hand wearily across his face. "It's the exact polar opposite."

Kendall can't help but agree.

* * *

**Reviews mean more than you guys know.**


	18. Chapter 18

**Oh gosh, I know this took forever to get out. I've had writers block and another fic to finish up and get posted by November 12th, so I'm sorry. This will probably be the last chapter I can get out until December and I'm back home. Finals are coming up and well, let's just say I won't be going on the internet. I won't be doing anything that isn't studying. ;_;**

**Can I just say that you guys are all so amazing? I got more reviews on the last chapter than I ever have. I was shocked and elated and it really, truly made my day to know that there are that many of you out there who care about my writing. I can't even thank each one of you personally because it would take too long and take up too much space, that's how awesome you all are for leaving feedback.**

**I don't generally like to give things away, but I think this is something I should warn for. Well, not warn, but mention for those of you uncomfortable with the subject. There is some implications and mentions of abortion in this chapter. I know abortion is a polarizing subject and I'm not going to try and stir up any kind of debate. How one feels about it is deeply personal. I tried to handle it respectfully and realistically, because these characters are young and parenthood is such a huge responsibility and lifelong commitment. If anyone is in any way made uncomfortable by this chapter, feel free to comment or PM me if you wish, but know that I in no way meant to upset anyone, I'm just trying to write and tackle issues as they could very well be handled in the real world. There is no actual abortion in this story, only a brief mention of it.**

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That morning is tense, nervous and edgy. Carlos is the first one out of bed, maybe because this is someone else's dream he's participating in. And when Carlos gets right down to it, really, truly thinks, this crazy trip to Hollywood is barely going to affect his life one way or the other. They either get the record deal and Carlos makes enough money to bring his family to the United States the very next day or he doesn't. If they don't get it, he's not losing too much because he hasn't let the hope build up in his chest yet or else when it bursts it'll crush him from the inside, smother and squeeze his heart.

Logan's up next and he's on his cell phone talking to Camille the second he's out of the bedroom, phone pressed to close to his ear it's like he's trying to merge his flesh and the plastic into one. He wants to ask; only he isn't sure what he could say. There is advice he can give that might do them good, except the advice is too deep and personal to ever consider sharing. He remembers coming home from school and walking into the bathroom to find Yoli crying as she sat on the closed toilet seat, a little white stick clutched in her hands. He was still young then, still sharing a room with his sister, but he knew what the stick meant and that Yoli was crying because of what it said. There had been a little plus sign in the center, standing out neat and black. He didn't say anything to their parents, because it was a secret just for them, something between him and his sister who was very best friend. Yoli took money out of his piggy bank one morning, stuffed it into her purse along with everything she'd made at work for the last two months, and after that, nothing happened and their lives didn't change.

"There's a clinic near where we live," he says so, so carefully, quiet and slow, taking occasional sips from his cup of coffee in-between words. The air feels thin and dangerous, like something could crack and shatter if he isn't careful. "It does prenatal care and other stuff." He lets the sentence hover heavy around them. He's not saying anything, not directly, simply offering.

"Yeah?" Logan nods, an expression on his face that means he's deep in thought.

"Yeah."

"Good to know." He burns his tongue and it stings as he presses it to the roof of his mouth to cool it. His spit is bitter with the sour of coffee, sticky and sick. "How do you know?"

"I have an older sister." They leave it at that, Logan doesn't ask if he has a niece or nephew aside from the one due to come into the world in a few short weeks. Logan's a good friend, a better one than Carlos gives him credit for.

"Life, man." Logan sighs, wraps his hands around the white, porcelain hotel mug and it has to burn to have his skin flush against the coffee-warmed sides. Logan doesn't let on to any pain, just stares at his drink, watches the liquid quiver until the surface of the coffee goes mirror-smooth. "It never goes the way you want it to."

He nods his head, suddenly feeling solemn and quiet, the thrum of excitement beneath his skin softening to a dull whoosh that sounds in sync with the beating of his heart.

"Tell me about it."

* * *

All in all, he thought Hollywood was going to be more amazing than it turns out to be. He had imagined dazzling lights and endless strips of red carpet, good looking people crowding the streets, designer sunglasses and an ocean that was a perfect, stunning shade of blue. Los Angeles looks nothing short of normal as they take a limo to the recording studio. Los Angeles looks like everyone in his family always said, just how his mamá and papá dreamed. He tries to find the fields, the workers bent over in the scorching summer sun. LA doesn't look like the land of opportunities everyone in Mexico claims it to be. There are street names somewhere that are entirely in Spanish, shops that sell pan dulce and tacos steaming in tin foil wrappers, dripping salsa and cilantro. He can sense it, a strange kind of cultural belonging that hangs thick in the air. Los Angeles is the city of the angels in Spanish and he thinks the name might be true in real life too, if the day goes how he hopes it will.

Gustavo Rocque is smaller than Carlos pictured him. He's smaller in the height sense of the word, because he's not small in any other way, not by a long shot. He could guess his pant size on the spot if someone asked him to, because he's fucked guys Gustavo's size before. He's fucked guys in just about every size by this point in his life, though his usual customers tend to be middle aged with guts rounded from home cooking or too many Sunday afternoons drinking beer. He knows what type of demographic he appeals to, unpleasant as the knowledge may be. If he'd had the chance to finish through with the business classes he started what seems like forever ago, he could be pretty good at marketing someday.

Gustavo has a cute assistant that reminds him of Marisela Saldívar from Puerto Rico. She's older, though, and has a clipboard held against her chest, a pen behind her ear that is just waiting to be used.

"Well," Gustavo tips himself back in his chair, eyebrows arched. He sounds angry, despite the fact that they've only been in his office for less than five minutes. "Start singing, I don't have all day."

He's singing before he knows exactly what they're doing. He follows Kendall's lead like he has since they met. Kendall is the type of guy he's always going to listen to, who he'll always want to take the lead. Kendall's just Kendall, he supposes, if someone's name can also be the thing you use to describe them. Logan would say it's cheating, but he's never going to say this stuff out loud, so a little cheating works fine. He sings his part, lost in harmonies and melodies, in the chorus of his friends' dreams that ring sharp and clear as the songs of a hundred birds.

He's out of breath when they finish and it feels like someone has trapped a hummingbird in his chest.

"Were we okay?" Kendall asks after a few minutes of silence. Gustavo is just staring at them while Kelly scribbles things down on her clipboard, her face expressionless as her pen glides across the paper.

"I guess." Gustavo says with a wave of his hand, his tone indicated he's less than pleased with them. It makes Carlos stomach drop to his shoes to hear it. Kelly smacks Gustavo lightly on the shoulder and glares at him. "But, you're the best I've seen so far. You'll do."

It's not a congratulations or even genuine excitement, but they'll take it. They don't have any better options. Carlos has never exactly gotten the best of the best in life; mediocrity settles well with him, slides under his skin like oil over water. Were this the appropriate time, he'd be jumping onto someone's back right about now, ready to cling to his heart's content.

"What he means is, congratulations, you guys were awesome." Kelly shakes all their hands, smiling so widely he wonders if it hurts her face. "Welcome to Rocque Records."

* * *

He's on Kendall's back the second they leave the studio and Kendall laughs like he's not going to stop for the rest of his life. It's different being on Kendall's back, he notices. Kendall's not as tall as James; he can't quite carry all of Carlos' weight the same way. Kendall staggers a bit at first before he adjusts to it, before he adjusts to Carlos. James could always carry him without a second thought, even when his skin was slippery with blood and James could barely stand the sight of it, let alone the slick, warm feel. of him bleeding onto his nice, new shirt

"This calls for a _real_ celebration. I say we go out tonight."

"Totally. We need to get wasted." When he closes his eyes he can see it, the four of them crowded at the bar of a club, empty shot glasses lined up beside their hands. His mouth will taste sour of tequila and he'll lick salt off the back of his hand like his papá taught him one of the last nights he was in the country. His papá sat him down at the kitchen table, already a little buzzed on beer, smiling because Yoli was getting_ married_ and took two chipped shot glasses from the cupboard. They sat there for over an hour and he learned just how to bite into the lime, how to sprinkle the salt on his hand, how to down tequila without tasting it, without letting it touch his tongue or his lips. "What do you say Carlos?" James looks right at him and he drops off Kendall's back without warning.

"Sounds fun." He shrugs because he doesn't know what else to do or say. He's mad at James for reasons he can't remember, so the anger he first felt has mutated into a soft, stinging thing that gnaws deep down in his belly. He can't let go of the feeling because then that means James will win, whatever it is they're both holding out for.

"I'm not going anywhere until Camille gets here." He almost forgot about Logan and Camille. He still doesn't have any better advice for them. Being parents young is hard, his mamá had Yoli when she was Camille's age and those were difficult years. He's seen the pictures of their house back in Mexico before they took Yoli across the border and through the fence, swam through the river with Yoli perched on his papá's shoulders to keep her dry. Their house had one bedroom and a bathroom with running water that only came out of the taps clear on certain days. Yoli didn't have baby toys or a closet stuffed full of clothes. His sister slept in bed with his mamá and papá, sandwiched right between them.

"Oh yeah." James claps Logan on the back once and draws his hand back. "We're here for you, dude. I'm not going to change diapers or anything, but I'll help you pick out some stylin' clothes for it."

"That's not what I want to hear." Logan walks with his shoulders slumped forward as though he's suddenly carrying an enormous weight on his back, which he pretty much is. "I don't even _like_ babies. I assumed I'd like them when I was older, you know, like it's an evolutionary type thing to tolerate them once you're ready to breed."

"You should have used a condom." Kendall's right, a condom is always rule number one. The rare occasions his customers were women the first thing he did was roll one on. With guys condoms are even more important, you might never know for sure if someone has an STD, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. He was sorry for it once, when a john offered him a hundred to go bareback and he was stupid and new and said okay. He spent an entire week crying each time he had to take a piss, biting his tongue against the excruciating burn while he waited for the antibiotics the clinic prescribed him to work.

"Yes, thank you, I got an A in freshman sex education, I'm aware."

"Then next time remember one. You never know what you could catch."

They talk about condoms the entire ride back to the Palmwoods. The driver starts looking at them weird before they're even halfway there.

* * *

Camille gets in around five that evening. She and Logan come bursting through the front door and Camille's entire purse is filled to the brim with pregnancy tests. There are over a dozen different types in it and Logan turns it over so that the boxes can come clattering out.

"Holy shit." James picks up one of the boxes that lands on the floor. There is a picture of a fat cheeked baby smiling on the front of it. "Did you guys buy the entire pregnancy test aisle?"

"How did you afford all these?" Pregnancy tests aren't cheap, he remembers his friend Nadine buying some for a science project back in high school. They cost her almost twenty-five dollars for three boxes that only had two sticks each. "Was there a sale or something?"

"Yes." Camille nods, tugging Logan by his sleeve over to the bathroom. "They were practically a steal." Logan giggles a little at some joke Carlos doesn't get.

"I really fucking hope she isn't pregnant." James says while they wait and Carlos can only nudge James gently with his knee in agreement. James smiles at that and it's almost like they used to be, before James knew what he was and wanted something better; a girl with sweet perfume and long hair and high, full breasts. Sometimes he thinks he can still smell that girl on James' skin and it makes his face flame hot with embarrassment. He almost, he doesn't even _know_ what he almost did that night, only that James obviously doesn't want it. He thinks he wanted to kiss him, because no one in his life had ever been to him what James is, what James was.

And, as though the universe has suddenly decided to make their day, Camille gives off a happy screech inside the bathroom and Logan shouts an unmistakable 'yes'. Carlos wants to hug someone right then, he's so goddamn happy.

"Fuck yeah." Logan exists the bathroom with four white sticks in his hands, waves them in his and James' faces. Each pregnancy test has a black negative sign. That little line is one of the most beautiful things he's seen in all his life. "Look at that!" Logan pauses before adding with a grin. "Bitches."

"And, like James suggested, this is when we all go out and get fantastically drunk."


	19. Chapter 19

**This has taken me _forever _to get out and I'm so, so sorry. I've been busy with other stories and signed up for the Supernatural Big Bang and I've been neglecting this fic a bit, and I apologize for that. I won't do it again, I swear.**

**This is the second to last chapter, exciting right? I should have the last out soon, I really will try.**

**Thank you all for being so patient with me. I know I don't always get back to you in a timely fashion(I've been sick and away from school so I've had less time to write) but I head back to school on Friday and I'm sure I'll have ample time to write on the plane. Afterall, last time I was on the plane I wrote BTR porn for the kinkmeme. Planes are very conducive to the writing process.**

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James has a hangover heavy in his head and the California sun is ten shades too bright. He misses late mornings and the potential for summer-gray skies and rain.

The smell of sausage and bacon sizzling in the kitchen makes up for the pounding at the base of his skull as he heads out into the living room of their new apartment. The place is kind of the shits, nothing like his real apartment back in Minnesota, but it's a step up from where they were all living.

"Good morning." Camille has a spatula in one hand and a frying pan in the other. She's cooking breakfast and instead of draining the grease that's collecting in the pan like a normal person, she's letting it sit and bubble. The sight of the bacon shiny with fat and oil makes the alcohol sitting in his stomach threaten to shoot right up his throat.

"I'm not eating that."

"It's to cure your hangover, the studio called and you have to meet Gustavo in half an hour to fill out paperwork."

"Blech, everyone knows pozole is _the_ hangover food." Carlos comes out of the bedroom wearing one of James' shirts. The sight brings back memories of Carlos laughing at the sight of himself in James' too big clothes and the slide of blood down the inside of James' sweats, the spots of red that can't ever get washed out of the light gray. They're stained with a part of Carlos forever, tainted by that awful, horrible night. "I'll ask my mom for the recipe next time I talk to her, I'll have to find a place out here that sells pig's feet, it shouldn't be too hard. I'm dying to go see East LA."

"Well eat up, you guys gotta go." Camille shoves the dripping plate of congealing bacon and grease towards them. He manages a slice or two before the taste makes him want to gag and then they're off in another studio provided limo. Their new life as future popstars isn't too bad at all.

At the record company, Gustavo is waiting for them in his office. There are only two chairs and they aren't offered sparkling water on the spot. Hollywood perks appear to only exist for the already-famous, as unfair as that may be. He's going to be bigger than _anyone_, they will all see.

"Here are your contracts." Gustavo shoves packets at them twenty pages thick. They're enormous and the print is so small he can barely read it without squinting. "Nothing in them is negotiable, if you have a problem with something, either suck it up or get out. There are plenty of other guys ready and willing to take your places for less."

They all start reading, though, James pretty much skims. Logan will point out anything really important so he scans the lines looking for important words like _salary_ and _album _and _world tour_. Those are the only words he needs to see, the only ones he needs to make this wild, not-so-crazy dream finally come true. He can make the most of anything, he always has, and one way or another he's going to see his name in lights someday.

"Wait." He's surprised that Carlos is the first one to speak. "You're not paying us?"

"Read the clause—" Gustavo frowns and rubs his hand wearily across his face. "I'm assuming you can read. It says that if and only _if_ your album sells you will get paid a portion of the sales plus whatever individual sums the studio sees fit."

"So if our album bombs we won't make _any_ money?" Carlos has that panicked look on his face, the one James hasn't seen since he felt Carlos' blood dribbling sticky and warm down his back.

"That's right."

"Then I'm out." Carlos drops the contract just like that, no more questions, just fucking drops James' _dream_.

"Carlos?" Kendall's there before James has a chance to get to him, a hand on each of Carlos' shoulders, looking him straight in the eyes. "It's only three months; they're going to pay for everything we need. We won't need money."

"_You _won't need money." Carlos shoves Kendall away, truly angry for one of the few times since James has met him. Carlos never goes straight to anger; he usually skips it and goes full circle back to cheerful and happy. Carlos is the one who wedges himself between people during fights. "I have a family to take care of. I have to make house payments and buy them groceries and pay for my sister's doctor visits and buy the baby a crib!"

Kelly looks a little stunned by Carlos' outburst and Gustavo leans back in his big chair and blinks.

"Look kid, I'm sorry you have problems, I am, but I can't pay you for nothing, it doesn't work that way." James thought Gustavo was an asshole, but he isn't, he's just a businessman, plain and simple, there's someone human in there, even if it's way down deep. "I can't take these three without you, we need four guys, don't ruin your friends' futures just because you have some personal issues."

Carlos looks at the three of them and James needs him so badly to _see_. Things will get better, they have to, and Carlos' family can wait for a while. In a few months their album will be out and Carlos will be able to take care of them for the rest of their lives, he just has to have some faith in James and Kendall and Logan and himself.

"Okay, I'll do it." Carlos picks up the papers and signs with a trembling hand and a grim kind of determination in his face.

"Atta boy." Kendall claps Carlos on the back but the smile on Carlos' face never reaches his eyes.

* * *

He's too exciting to sleep that night. He's worked up on the prospect of their first day of actual work to be able to make himself calm down enough to go to bed. All he can think about are melodies and lyrics and notes, screaming fans and billboards plastered with his face. He can see it and he wants it so damn badly, more than he ever knew. It might have been Kendall's dream to succeed in this town, but James is the one who wants fame more than success, more than the rush of seeing his work made real. He wants public adoration more than industry praise. His mom always told him he was a little narcissistic and yeah, he won't deny it, but narcissism should get him far in Hollywood.

"I thought you were asleep." Carlos stops dead like a snowflake on a windshield. The look on his face is overwhelmingly guilty and James knows why the second he takes in what Carlos is wearing.

Carlos is wearing his tightest jeans and they're tugged low on his hips, enough to show that he isn't wearing underwear beneath the light blue denim. There are holes in the knees that weren't there when he packed the jeans the day before. It's a more Californian in style, sun-bleached and well worn, like Carlos wears them to the beach or on hikes or wherever it is kids their age from California go. He has on a plain white tank because summer nights are hot out on the west coast too despite the lack of humidity. Carlos is freshly shaven and washed and damn near sparkly-clean. He could even be sparkly if he wanted, but he isn't wearing body glitter tonight and his lips aren't glossed over James' favorite shade of bubblegum pink.

"Nope, not asleep." He clicks off the TV and sits up, rests his chin in the palm of his hand. "I thought you were a Midwest bitch, didn't know you wanted to be a West Coast ho." He tries to follow it with a laugh but inside his chest is hollow.

"Fuck you, James." Carlos isn't upset with him, he's caught somewhere in-between. He looks like he wants to yell; only he doesn't have the energy.

"You don't have to, you know." He pats the space next to him; Carlos shrugs and takes a seat.

"We've talked about this before." Carlos' bare shoulder blades are warm and smooth. James wants to touch them, cup them with the palms of his hands, press his lips there as he slides up against Carlos' naked back.

"Just bringin' it up again. The point stays the same. Where are you going to go?"

"I dunno, I think I'm going to head over to West Hollywood. There's supposed to be a big gay scene there. It's usually the closeted dudes that pick me up, but I'm sure I could get an ugly gay guy to pay for me, right? Or maybe even a not ugly guy."

"I'm sure you could." Carlos shifts uncomfortably. "But you should stay here. Your family will be okay for a little while and once we get an album out you're going to be able to buy them a beach house."

"I can't wait that long. I've got people who depend on me and I _can't_ let them down."

"I'm sure your family is proud of you."

"If they knew—" Carlos pauses in the doorway and his skin is deep bronze and perfect in the light. "they wouldn't be."

* * *

His high fades to bitter disappointment as he lies in bed waiting for Carlos to get home. Their new apartment doesn't have the sounds of the city filtering in through the windows. The Palmwoods is prime real estate, far from the freeway and busy intersections. It's a quiet peace meant to give guests the best sleep of their lives.

Carlos creeps in through the bedroom door around four in the morning. His jeans are hiked up high as they'll go and his tank is tugged down low so there's not even a hint of the rich brown skin of his belly exposed. He looks more like Carlos; tired and young and carefree.

"How'd the west side go?"

"It sucked." Carlos slams a fistful of cash down on the dresser. When James looks closely, he notices that no bill is higher than a ten. "There are tons of people and they're all selling so _cheap _and there's nothing I can do about it but lower my price. And some of the kids are so _young_, who wants old, dried out me when they can have a real teenager? I'm ancient."

"You're not old, relax. You wanted to keep doing this; you're going to have to deal with competition."

Carlos strips off his shirt, throws it onto the ground near his bed. He has a bright red hickey on his chest a few inches above his right nipple and another on his neck. They look like they hurt, like they were sucked viciously into his skin.

"I'm gonna go get in the shower, I feel gross."

"I bet." He can't imagine having that much sweat and spit and semen on him. Carlos must feel it every time he moves.

After his shower, Carlos comes in with a towel around his waist. "Better?"

"Way better." Carlos drops the towel to change and James can't help but look. It's not a sexual thing, not really, more curiosity than anything else. He's seen Carlos without pants on before, but that time Carlos' skin was smeared red and bloody. The curve of Carlos' ass is firm and strong and tan, there's muscle in his thighs that could be put to better use, that he's seen Carlos work while dancing. Carlos is tan and healthy and solid all over. "James?" Carlos stops, fingers paused at the waistband of his boxers. James is caught, plain and simple. He can deny all he wants, to himself and Carlos, but it doesn't change that he _wants_. "Oh." Carlos lets his boxers fall, steps out of them slowly.

"Carlos…I wasn't, I mean, I was…"

"It's okay, no one's, not _ever_, not without paying."

"I will."

Carlos kisses him softer than he did that first time. His mouth is soft, smooth, and his lips don't taste like cosmetic wax. Carlos' mouth doesn't taste like anything but he kisses carefully like he's going over the steps in his head, like he's trying to remember what feels best. It makes James think of the _Pretty Woman_ rule and he realizes that Carlos never kissed a single person who paid him on the mouth. It's as though Carlos saved a little piece of himself just for James, not intentionally or directly, but he did, and James will take it.

He gets Carlos on his stomach, supporting himself on his hands and knees. He kisses each of Carlos' shoulder blades, the skin at the back of his neck, the knobs of his spine down his back. Carlos doesn't make a sound but his eyes and mouth are open, forehead pressed against the palm of his hand. Carlos is warm and slick once he slips inside, loose and used around him. He feels wrecked, like he's gone a hundred rounds that night. He tries not to think about how many people before him have done this, how many in that very night. He works past it, through it, into it. Carlos takes it like a pro, takes all of James, which would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

When he catches his breath, still riding a post-orgasm high, he drapes himself across Carlos' back again, rests his forehead between Carlos' shoulders. He's finding a rhythm, faltering because he's tired and his hands over the backs of Carlos' are shaking.

"James." It's the first sound Carlos has made other than breathing. "James." There is sweat shining at Carlos' temples, dripping down his front. "It hurts, oh _god_, it hurts." Just like that he's out and away, up against the wall, as far from Carlos as he can manage.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea that, I guess it's technically a compliment, but I'm so sorry."

Carlos laughs a quiet, happy laugh.

"It's just been a long night, a _busy_ night."

"You don't need to remind me."

Sleeping is easier with Carlos in bed beside him.


End file.
